


(Eye) Contact

by SheriffsRevolver



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, Homophobia, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Romance, Sharing a Bed, Truth or Dare, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-06-04 20:27:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15155009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheriffsRevolver/pseuds/SheriffsRevolver
Summary: Daryl has been acting funny lately. Rick plans to get to the bottom of it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tiofrean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiofrean/gifts).



> After everything that's been going on in the recent s8/s9 canon, I thought it was high time we return to our rickyl roots, and remind ourselves what we like so much about these boys. So, I present to you a classic Rickyl. A canon compliant, prison era throw back, chalk full of all our favorite rickyl tropes. 
> 
> I listened to the Beauty of Discipline by Gareth Pearsons on loop while writing this entire fic, so if you're looking for some instrumental mood music to accompany your reading, I highly recommend it. [[Spotify]](https://open.spotify.com/track/519POQZ8qXwhqtKzAu1Exp?si=mA2pHno8T9Su_tjCLB2btw) [[Youtube]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNKs6fU7X6g)
> 
> Beta'd by the wonderful, fantastic, amazing, [ab_O_vo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ab_O_vo/pseuds/ab_O_vo). Thank you for all you do, honey!

The moment Rick pushes through the doors leading out to the prison yard and starts toward the loading zone, his eyes fall on Daryl, who's leaning on the packed-up hatchback, his bare arm pressed up against the undoubtedly sweltering metal. Daryl doesn’t seem disturbed by his skin getting fried though. He’s caught up in his task: checking the fletching on his arrows. Rick can tell what he’s doing even though Daryl’s back faces him, because every few seconds, Daryl’s quick movements flip the pointed tip out from behind the barrier of his body and into Rick’s view. 

Daryl doesn’t even acknowledge the door's heavy bang that signaled Rick’s arrival; he’s lost to picking at the imperfect feathers. Rick doesn’t have to see his face to know that Daryl’s bottom lip is caught by his teeth, and that he’s gnawing it white, like it’ll improve his focus somehow to chew away at himself. Rick smiles at the thought.

Daryl looks good, standing there propped up against the car, hip cocked, head tilted lazily to one side. A strange glow of pride takes hold in Rick’s belly. He feels lucky to know Daryl. He’s got an aura that’s effortlessly cool, and Rick feels a teenage-like flutter in his chest at the thought of other people seeing them standing side by side, walking together, fighting together. Like Daryl’s coolness will extend itself to Rick, just by association alone. It’s a stupid thought, because if their run goes well, nobody should see them together out there. But it makes him feel a little giddy nonetheless.

Rick claps a hand over Daryl’s shoulder, and Daryl shoots about a foot in the air, shouting in surprise. It produces a noise that comes out like, “Gyuh!” thus, instantly shattering the illusion of laid-back composure. Rick can’t help himself—he snorts.

“Jesus christ!” Daryl says. His eyes are wide and his chest heaves. “Don’t fuckin’ do that!” He shoves Rick’s hand off his shoulder and presses back against the car. His arrow hangs at his side, forgotten.

Rick’s smile creeps up his face. “Do what?” he asks.

“That!” Daryl says. He waves his fingers in Rick’s general direction. “Sneak up on me like that.”

Rick scoffs. Then, when he sees the seriousness of Daryl’s expression, he laughs. “Shut up. I did not sneak up on you. You’re always goin’ on ‘bout how heavy-footed I am. You heard the door close! Heard me walkin’ up. You knew I was comin’ up beside you.”

Daryl frowns and looks down at his arrow. He twirls the metal stick between his fingers. “Well, yeah, but…”

“But a hand on your shoulder’s gonna cause you a heart attack?”

Daryl’s face turns red, from the top of his forehead, peeking out behind greased strands of hair, all the way down to where his chest disappears underneath his threadbare shirt. “I wasn’t expectin’ it.” It comes out soft, almost apologetic.

Rick’s brow furrows.“Okay… Sorry. I won’t—I won’t do that anymore—”

“No!”

When Rick’s brow tightens up, Daryl sinks back in on himself. He says, “No. I didn’t mean nothin’ like that. Just meant…don’t sneak up on me. Okay?”

Rick blinks at him. “Okay,” he says.

Daryl nods, and then Rick nods, and then they’re both bobbing their heads with no signs of stopping. Rick looks to the side, and Daryl keeps his eye on his arrow twirling in his fingers, and just as it becomes painfully awkward, Daryl’s head stops suddenly, he clears his throat, and says, “Ready?”

Rick keeps nodding, but flicks his eyes over to meet Daryl’s. The color on Daryl’s cheeks faded to light pink, but the eye contact immediately cranks it back up to red. Rick feels his own face heat, though he can’t imagine why. He’s got nothing to feel embarrassed over.

Mercifully, Daryl snatches up his bow where it lays propped up against the hatchback’s tire. “C’mon then. Burnin daylight. You’re drivin’.” Daryl heads over to the other passenger side, and once his sauntering form disappears, all the air rushes from Rick’s lungs.

What the hell was that about?

***

Twenty-four hours after they’ve returned from their run, Rick sits two places over from Daryl at the conference table. Hershel and Maggie have entered into heated debate with Daryl and Glenn over their next run trip. Hershel’s side argues for continuing to search through previously explored areas, while Daryl’s side insists that the areas have been picked clean and they should head further out. Rick doesn’t really care either way. He hasn’t paid much attention from the start of the conversation. How can he possibly focus on the meeting when Daryl refuses to look at him?

Daryl talks like he always does in these meetings: completely silent until he’s not, then he becomes a persistent contributor, waving his arms around and talking over everyone else. He’s already reached that point in the debate. He leans over the table, smacks his open hand against the table top with each point, and blows over all the others—even Glenn, who’s done nothing but follow Daryl up with the occasional, “Yeah,” or, “He’s got a point.” Hershel stares at Daryl with raised brows and a tight smile, emitting an air of condescension that would normally lead Daryl to turn toward Rick with wide, imploring eyes that say, “Can you believe this guy? Back me up here.”

Rick waits for it. The phrase, “I agree with Daryl on this one,” sits on the tip of his tongue, and he’s ready to unleash it as soon as Daryl asks with that look of his. Only he doesn’t ask. He goes on ranting by himself, like Rick’s not even in the room.

Rick can’t stand Daryl's blind eye any longer, so he shifts in his seat and clears his throat like he’s fixing to say something. Predictably, all eyes around the table turn to him. When Daryl notices the shift of attention, his words die in his mouth. He cranks his head towards Rick, inch by inch, like he’s debating it the whole way. When their eyes meet, Daryl’s brow furrows and he settles into a frown.

“Yes, Rick?” Hershel says.

Rick doesn’t look at him. He stays focused on Daryl’s flushed cheeks and pained eyes. They stay like that for a few long moments.

Finally, Rick says, “Nothing.”

Hershel takes advantage of the break in Daryl’s speech to steer the conversation back to his plan. Daryl should’ve jumped back in, but he’s shocked silent by Rick’s unwavering gaze. After a few long moments, Daryl huffs dramatically and crosses his arms over his chest. He glares down at the table top and doesn’t say a word, even though the group begins finalizing their plans for the next run according to Hershel’s instruction. Rick tries to look elsewhere, but his attention always drifts back to Daryl’s sulking form. And Rick decides that there’s only one way to get to the bottom of this: he has to try touching Daryl again. Right now. Before either of them leave this room. His fingers twitch under the table.

Yesterday, on his run with Daryl, Rick turned over the hand-on-shoulder interaction in his head countless times. He couldn’t help it. Sometimes the work kept him distracted, but there were lulls, and the memory of Daryl’s tense shoulders, wide eyes, and colored cheeks rushed in to fill the empty space. The whole afternoon, Daryl didn’t talk to him like he normally did, and Rick couldn’t tell if it was because of his own unease, or because he could sense Rick’s. It resulted in a run filled with awkward silence and the occasional bout of confused eye contact. Once they arrived home, Daryl shooed Rick off to rest and promised he’d oversee the unloading. Rick knew he ought to insist on helping, but he didn’t. He just went inside, grateful to put some space between them.

Boiled down to its basic parts, the situation seems even stranger: he touched Daryl’s shoulder and Daryl spooked like he’d seen a ghost. Who the hell jumps out of their skin because of a hand on their shoulder?

 _An abuse victim_ , Rick’s Sheriff brain whispers to him for the umpteenth time. _You can’t come up behind an abuse victim and touch them unexpectedly. Of course you startled him._

Rick knew about Daryl’s past—knew about it from the second he laid eyes on him, back at the quarry. It’s the kind of history that people wear like a second skin, and once you know what it looks like, it’s impossible to miss. Rick’s days on the force taught him how to spot it in someone’s body language, in their eyes. Seeing the scars on Daryl’s back only confirmed what he already knew.

During their run, Rick tried hard to accept this explanation. _Daryl's an abuse victim. You can't sneak up on abuse victims._ He repeated it to himself like mantra, but every time he caught Daryl’s tentative gaze for a brief moment, he thought to himself, _No, that's not the answer, is it?_

It would be easy to write the incident off as Daryl being touch-shy. Problem is, Rick knows that Daryl isn’t—not anymore. When they first met, Daryl responded to Rick’s touch like it was an electric shock, but over time, he became accustomed to it. He learned to welcome it, even.

Rick can pinpoint the exact moment things shifted. It happened back at Hershel’s farm.

 

They had just chosen a place to set up camp, not too far from Hershel’s house, but far enough to give the man his privacy. It was a good defensive spot. It boasted decent coverage and a clear view of the entire field from atop the RV. Rick picked it out himself, and thought he’d done a nice job of it, but apparently Daryl believed otherwise, because once the group started unloading their supplies, Daryl collected up his things, and wheeled his bike away.

Rick meant to hang a clothesline, but the looped twine in his hands went forgotten when he noticed Daryl’s loping stride carrying him off. Rick watched him wander a stone’s throw away before stopping. He propped his bike up and shuffled around, assessing the location. Then Daryl looked back at the rest of the group, and caught Rick staring at him. Embarrassed, Rick ducked his head and pulled the rope through his hands, only to make himself look busy. When he stole another glance, he saw Daryl wheeling his bike even further out, until he disappeared behind patch of trees extending into the field. A concerned flutter stirred in Rick’s gut. He glanced around, but found the group engrossed in their tasks. Nobody else had noticed Daryl’s departure. Maybe nobody else cared. Lori patted Rick’s shoulder and motioned for the line.

“C’mon. I’ve got this end. You take that end over there,” she said.

Rick nodded, and set back to work, and though he didn’t look back that way again, his mind had occupied itself with the problem of Daryl Dixon.

Two hours later, they’d pitched the tents, built a cooking pit with a circle of makeshift seating, and organized a laundry system. Lori had put together a small group to wash the things that had gone too long without, and Carol had started dinner with Glenn acting as sous chef. Rick hovered for a while, trying to find a way to make himself useful, but felt like he was only getting in the way. So he ended up standing around and watching the others work.

Carol had decided to make a squirrel stew. Daryl still hadn’t returned, and as the sun sank lower in the sky, Rick began to wonder if he planned to. It didn’t seem right for the rest of them to eat his game and leave him all alone. Someone ought to tell him when dinner would finish.

Rick came up beside Carol. She was leaning over the massive cooking pot and stirring while Glenn dumped in canned peas.

“How long, you think?” Rick asked.

Carol gave him a strained smile. “Oh, I don’t know. Twenty minutes, maybe?”

Rick nodded and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’ll do the dishes afterwards, alright?”

Her smile softened a bit, and she nodded.

Rick headed in the direction Daryl had disappeared in. Once he walked around the bend created by the forest line, Daryl’s camp came into view. He had ended up a couple hundred feet away from the main camp. His bike, a tight-pitched tent, and a cooking pit of his own, all sat in a small little cluster against the forest’s edge, with the man in question leaning back against a tree, whittling a stick into a pointed tip.

Once within ear shot, Rick opened his mouth to say, “Hey,” to announce his arrival, but before he could, Daryl barked out, “Whatcha want, Rick?” Daryl hadn’t even looked up.

Rick’s brow furrowed, and he huffed amusedly. “How’d you know it was me?”

“Would recognize that cowboy gait anywhere.”

Rick came to a stop in front of Daryl and put his hands on his hips. “Cowboy gait?”

Daryl’s eyes finally flicked up to meet his. They lingered for half a second, then fell back to his sharpened stick. He shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah. It’s your legs.” Daryl traced the shape in the air with his stick. “They’re bowed. So your steps swing out a bit. And those boots got a weighted sole. Makes yer feet fall heavy. Or maybe yain’t never learned to tread lightly. Point is, ya step loud. I’d know yer walk from a mile ‘way.”

Shock knocked an awkward laugh out of Rick. He looked down at his legs. Bowed? Yeah, he supposed they were. How the hell did Daryl notice that when he himself hadn’t?

“Plus I figured you’d wander over here ‘fore dark,” Daryl said. “You’ve been gearin’ up to ask me a question.”

“Have I now?”

“Yup.”

Rick blinked and tilted his head. He looked Daryl up and down. “Okay, so I get why you’d notice my—my gait. You hunt. Track.”

Daryl held his stick up to the sun and squinted at it. He rotated it around in his hand. “Yeah, that’s sorta what I do,” he muttered. Something about the stick’s shape must have displeased him, because he frowned hard and began to scrape furiously at one side. He caught his lower lip with his teeth and chewed away at it, like it would improve the quality of his knife strokes.

“But how do you know I got a question for you?” Rick asked.

“What else would you be doing over here?”

“Telling you that dinner will be up soon?”

Daryl’s whittling stopped and he leaned back against the tree. He gave Rick a funny look, like he was trying to puzzle something out.

Rick shifted on his feet. “Carol’s makin’ stew outta the squirrels you got today. It’s comin’ off the fire in fifteen.”

“And I saw it in your eyes.”

Rick laughed. “What?”

His whittling picked back up, but slower, absentmindedly curling the smallest of shavings off the stick. “Earlier. Saw you lookin’ at me like you had a question.”

“You saw it _in my eyes_?”

Daryl raised his eyes to meet Rick’s. There was an intensity there that constricted around Rick’s chest and made it hard to get a good breath in. Daryl said, “You and I both know that eyes can say more than words ever could. And eyes don’t lie neither, so you might as well spit it out so we can both get on with our business.”

The silence hung over them, punctuated by Rick’s hanging mouth. His jaw worked around words that didn’t exist. Rick didn’t even know what his question was. There must exist one somewhere, but he couldn’t piece it together. He turned his head, looked at Daryl’s camp set up, so far from the others. Why—? Why…? His eyes flicked back to Daryl, and Rick shrugged helplessly.

“‘Cause I don’t belong over there,” Daryl said.

Like a game of Jeopardy, Rick’s brain buzzed in with the question to Daryl’s answer. _Why aren’t you over there, with the rest of us?_ Yes, that’s what had waited on the tip of Rick’s tongue.

“Of course you belong over there, with us,” Rick said.

“I ain’t one of you. Never gonna be.”

A surge of heat burned through Rick’s chest. He stood up taller, put his hands on his hips. “Did someone say somethin’ to you?” he asked. Images of Shane’s judgmental face rolled through his mind. “If someone said somethin’ to make you feel unwelcome, I’ll straighten them out. You _are_ one of us. And there’s no reason for you to be way out here when—”

“I don’t need you defendin’ me, Sheriff. I’m fine out here on my own. It’s better this way. Don’t worry. Nobody said nothin’. They don’t need to. It’s like I told ya. Eyes are loud. An’ they don’t lie.”

He shoved off the tree and strode over to his tent. He ducked inside and left Rick standing there, struck dumb, listening to the shifting nylon and the clamor as Daryl rooted around. A couple minutes later, he climbed back out. He didn’t seem surprised to see Rick still standing there, just annoyed.

“We ain’t done yet?” Daryl asked. He found his old spot, leaning against the tree beside Rick. Daryl’s stick had been traded for a hunting knife and a feather. A plume of feathers peeked out of his shirt’s breast pocket. He glanced up at Rick with raised brows, then huffed an amused laugh and shook his head. The knife sliced up the feather’s stem.

“You’ve got another question,” Daryl said.

“Why’d you come? Why stay? It’s clear that you don’t like any of us, or at the very least you’re not comfortable around us. Why stick around here, when your brother is out there?”

Daryl smirked. “Who said I weren’t comfortable ‘round none of y’all?”

“You’re basically sayin’ it yourself,” Rick said, gesturing to his camp.

Daryl looked at his set up, like he was seeing it for the first time. Then he looked Rick up and down, with the same fresh-eyes. He brushed the scraps of feather from his fingertips, and they twirled down to rest on the forest floor.

“I guess you’re right. The thing is, I don’t gotta like ‘em all. Just the one that matters.” His eyes flicked up to meet Rick. It knocked the wind right out of Rick’s lungs. Because there, in Daryl’s eyes, clear as freakin’ day, so plain it may as well have been said aloud, was one word:

 _You._

It felt like Daryl had whispered it right into his head, like telepathy. Rick’s throat constricted, and he swallowed hard enough that they could both hear it in the quiet twilight floating down around them. _You’re the only one he likes. The only reason he stayed._ He wouldn’t have believed it if Daryl had said it aloud. ‘What about Carol? Sophia?’ he would have asked. But Daryl was right: eyes didn’t lie. So, Rick had no choice but to believe. _He approves of you._  Daryl’s gaze squeezed him tight, and he couldn’t escape it. Couldn’t look away.

In the few moments that followed, they seemed to have an entire conversation—one that was plainly incapable of being spoken aloud. Untranslatable. Written out in micro-movements and emotion. By the time they’d finished, they had attained a new level of mutual understanding. Rick knew he’d do everything he could to keep Daryl around, because he'd never before communicated like that with someone. Not with Lori, or Shane, or Carl. It was hard enough to express himself with words—and hell, without them? Rick didn’t think it possible. Daryl proved him wrong.

Rick remained overwhelmed by it until Daryl eyes broke away. He refocused his attention on smoothing out his cut section of feather. Finally released from the mounting tension, Rick took a deep breath, his heavy exhale accompanied only by the night’s first crickets chirping. Rick glanced in the direction of the main camp, and came to a quick decision.

“Okay, well. I’m gonna go get us some dinner, bring it back here.”

Daryl’s head whipped up. “What, you ain’t gon eat with the others?”

Rick shook his head. He had already started on his way back. “Nah,” he said over his shoulder. “Guess I got more questions for you. First you can tell me what the hell it is you’re making.”

The night was quiet enough that Rick could make out Daryl’s snort behind him.

Rick returned a few minutes later with two tinfoil-wrapped bowls and two spoons. He came around the bend to find Daryl kneeling on the ground in front of the pit, poking at the first few licks of fire. Rick smiled. He came up beside Daryl and passed a bowl off, which Daryl took with two hands and a nod of thanks.

Rick eased himself down onto the forest floor beside Daryl, strategically out of the way of the growing smoke plume. He brushed the pine-needles out from under his ass. “We gotta get a couple chairs out here,” Rick said with a chuckle.

It wasn’t until they were both settled side by side, bowls of steaming stew in their hands, staring into the fire’s light, that Daryl replied. “Yeah,” he said, feather soft. He quickly followed it by an unmannerly large spoonful.

While they ate, Rick asked questions about Daryl’s project—handmade arrows for his bow, as it turned out.

“Andrea made me realize that the ones I got won’t last forever. I try and reuse ‘em as much as I can, but I can’t get every bolt back, ya know? I’m bound to run out sooner or later. I’d like to be prepared, case it turns out to be sooner.”

Daryl explained the mechanics of the bow, and the elements to consider when building arrows from scratch. There was a whole lot of physics to it, and Daryl blew Rick away with how well-versed he was. Rick asked plenty of follow-up questions as their conversation progressed, things like, ‘What happens if _so and so_ isn’t done right?’ and ‘Have you considered _this method_ or _that tool_?’ Most of the time he asked his questions out loud, but sometimes his mouth was full of stew, so he asked with his eyes instead.

During their conversation, Rick realized that things worked just as well the other way around. He could read, ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ and ‘Are you fuckin’ serious?’ off of Daryl without him having to say a word. So, even though Daryl had no qualms about talking with food in his mouth, sometimes he’d answer with his eyes, too.

“Well,” Rick said once they finished, “I better get back. I promised I’d do clean-up tonight. You sure you’re good out here?”

He rose to his feet, empty bowl in hand, and reached out to collect Daryl’s bowl. Only Daryl didn’t pass his bowl over. He clapped his hand down in Rick’s, and Rick hauled him to his feet. The hand-to-hand touch only lasted for a moment, and was over as soon as it served its purpose, but it made Rick’s insides glow pleasantly. Daryl never touched other people. The few times Rick had made the mistake of brushing up against him, or extending out a hand, Daryl skirted around it or shoved away any contact. Rick suspected that if he didn’t have Shane to back him up, Rick’s misplaced touches to Daryl would have gotten him laid flat on his ass by now.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. You want help with that clean up?” Daryl said.

Rick smiled. He didn’t need any help. His first instinct told him to say no, to tell Daryl to rest for the evening. Then, a little voice in his head whispered a fair point: _Might be a good way to get him over there. Get him used to being around the others, and the others used to being around him._

“That would be great, actually,” Rick said.

So, they walked back, and did the dishes together. Rick washed and Daryl dried. They didn’t talk much, but only because they were both listening to the conversations moving all around them as the group settled in for the night. Occasionally, a knowing glance would pass between them that communicated their thoughts on some overheard tidbit, and Rick would feel that warm glow inside him burn brighter. He felt like he’d found a fortune, buried right under everybody’s noses. Nobody else could see what Daryl was worth. But Rick saw. They’d all come around eventually, Rick would make sure of it. But for now, on this night, Daryl was Rick’s lovely little secret. A stack of hundreds in a paper bag.

When they finished, Rick toweled off his hands and nodded back toward Daryl’s camp. They walked over in silence.

“You didn’t have to walk me home, Sheriff,” Daryl muttered, hands deep in his pockets.

“I know,” said Rick.

They stopped in front of Daryl’s tent. Neither of them said anything. Rick wanted to look at Daryl’s eyes, but they’d put the fire out earlier, and without it, he couldn’t see enough to make a fair assessment.

“Well, thank you,” Rick said.

Daryl grunted.

Then, Rick put a firm hand on Daryl’s shoulder. He felt Daryl tense up for a moment, but after a few short seconds, he relaxed again. “You’ll holler if you get into trouble?”

“Course.”

Rick squeezed. “Good.” And Rick felt Daryl lean into that hand on his shoulder. Just a little bit.

 

Things turned into something different for them after that day. It established a sense of trust between them, because they both learned there wasn’t any point in deceit when they can read the truth in each other’s eyes. Rick loves having that with Daryl. He especially loved it back then, when his relationship with Shane had started to turn murky with half-truths, withheld information, and downright lies. It astounds Rick, how quickly he and Daryl became close friends. Back on the farm, Rick tried to maintain a degree of subtly about the nature of their relationship—he didn’t want to draw any more of Shane’s attention to Daryl. If Shane sensed that Daryl had moved in as his replacement in Rick’s life, it would have only added to the brewing conflict between the two of them.

As a result, Rick and Daryl’s relationship remained strong, but buried, deep below the surface of the group’s constantly shifting dynamics. They didn’t spend much time together, and talked mostly for business, but they came through for each other where it mattered. When Daryl’s search for Sophia ended up with him battered to near-death and with Andrea’s bullet grazing his head, Rick stayed by Daryl’s side all through his recovery. When a wandering walker bit Dale, and Rick didn’t have the strength to end his suffering, Daryl eased the gun from his hand and relieved him of that burden. They had each other’s backs.

Rick became the only person of the group gifted with permission to touch Daryl. It felt like a real privilege, and Rick took advantage of it every now and then. A hand on Daryl’s shoulder was his go-to. Sometimes he’d pat him on the back, shake his hand by way of greeting, or guide him with a gentle press of fingertips to his arm. Daryl never shied away from his touch, even though he avoided everyone else’s. Rick noticed when Carol earned her permission. She handled it with absolute grace. Fluttery touches and the occasional kiss to the forehead—all very motherly in nature.

Rick also noticed when those without Daryl’s permission made the attempt. Once Lori tried to touch his arm, and he flinched back like the intention alone had scalded him. On another instance, Shane smacked an open palm over Daryl’s back, like Rick had done only moments prior. It earned Shane a glare that ought to have struck him dead.

Shane’s face scrunched up in confusion, his eyes darting between Daryl and Rick. _Why’s it okay for Rick to do it, but not me?_ his eyes said. They both met him with blank faces, and finally Shane scoffed and stormed onward. “You’re a fuckin’ freak, Dixon,” he muttered as he blew past. He rammed his shoulder into Daryl on his way by. Rick saw the flash in Daryl’s eyes, the way his muscled coiled up tight, and Rick quickly put a steading, sympathetic hand on Daryl’s shoulder. The tension melted out of him. Their eyes met.

 _Let it go?_ Rick asked.

He deflated, all his anger slipping away. _Yeah, okay,_ Daryl replied.

So, had Daryl’s history of abuse made him touch-shy? Absolutely. But not with Rick. Rick had earned his permission over a year ago, and he’s worked hard to maintain it ever since.

Over time, the group grew on Daryl, and his unwritten list of permissions lengthened. What was once a single bullet point, Rick, had become two, Rick and Carol. Eventually, it became many: Rick, Carol, Judith, Carl, Beth, Glenn, Maggie, Michonne. Those few weeks where Merle blew through their lives for the second time, Rick realized that he had not made the cut. Daryl responded aggressively to his brother’s attempts at physical contact. That raised Rick’s suspicions against Merle more than anything else the jackass had done.

Rick knew that his own place on the list held a different sort of significance than the others, and not just because he was the first, and for a while, the only. More importantly, Rick was the only one on the list that Daryl touched back. Sure, on the rare occasion that a listed name hugged Daryl, he’d wrap his arms around them in reciprocation. It was the polite thing to do. But Daryl didn’t go seeking contact on his own. He didn’t care for it. Except with Rick.

If Rick patted his back, Daryl would pat back. If he clapped his hand down in Daryl’s for a shake, Daryl would clap his other hand down on top, and sandwich Rick in his grip. If Rick pressed his fingertips to Daryl’s arm, Daryl would run his knuckles over Rick’s skin in response.

The day that Daryl came back to report that Merle had died, Rick watched Carol hug Daryl tight. Daryl hugged back, but squirmed out of her arms after only a few seconds. Later that evening, Rick hugged him, and Daryl didn’t let go until Rick did.

Rick knew he was different.

So, the day before their run, when Daryl stood leaned up against the hatchback, and Rick put his hand on Daryl’s shoulder, he had expected a familiar pat in return—not wide eyes, red cheeks, and awkward stammering. No, Daryl’s response to him didn’t feel right. It wasn’t them. Something had changed, but what?

Rick looks at Daryl on the other side of the conference table. He has his arms crossed, eyes downcast, still sulking.

Rick flexes his hands. He has to try again. As soon as he can, he needs to close the gap between them, and see effect his hands will have on Daryl today. If yesterday was just a one off, then Rick doesn’t have to worry. But the possibility that he’d somehow lost his spot on Daryl’s permission list makes him nauseous. Daryl said he hadn’t. “No. I didn’t mean nothin’ like that. Just meant…don’t sneak up on me,” he said that day. But eyes don’t lie, and in Daryl’s, Rick saw fear.

Hershel’s tone shifts. “Alright. It’s decided then. Glenn and Maggie will take the next run, and they’ll cover the shopping strip off of Forester Road,” he says. “Thank you everyone for your discussion.”

Most the counsel pushes up from the table with the meeting’s conclusion. A few head straight out to continue on with their daily tasks. Maggie scoots over to the vacated seat beside Hershel and starts drafting up a run list. Glenn stands at the edge of the room, listening to their conversation, but refraining from contribution. Daryl sits unmoving and glares at the tabletop. Rick smirks. Here’s his chance.

He stands, and saunters over to Daryl. He comes to a stop behind him, puts both hands on his shoulders, and instantly, Daryl’s muscles tense up under him. Rick ignores it. He leans down, and whispers against Daryl’s ear, low enough that the others sitting across from them can’t hear. “Let Glenn and Maggie take this run off Forester. You and I will take the next trip out, and we’ll go far as you want. Screw whatever Hershel’s got to say about it. Alright?”

Rick hears Daryl swallow. His muscles haven’t released any of their tension. Which isn’t right—Rick’s touch is meant to put Daryl at ease, not wind him up. He squeezes reassuringly (he knows Daryl likes that), but it only makes the tension grow.

Too many seconds have passed. They’ve stumbled into new territory now. Daryl should have relaxed. Nodded. Patted one of Rick’s hands. Instead, he sits stone still.

“Alright?” Rick says.

Daryl swallows again. “Yeah…” he says, “Yeah, alright.” It sounds strangled.

Rick sucks in deep and steps back. He doesn’t mean to let the breath out on a tired sigh, but that’s how it happens. He shakes his head and walks out of the conference room. Before he disappears through the doorway, he steals a backwards glance. Daryl stares at his hands, folded hard together, and pressed into his lap. His jaw is clenched. His cheeks are red.

What the hell is going on?


	2. Chapter 2

Rick walks into the prison’s common area and finds most of the family lounging about the sitting space. The overlapping chatter gives the room a pleasant, lively feel. Everyone has found a place to make themselves comfortable. Even Daryl has secured a spot, nestled in the corner of the three seater couch, as far from the others as he can get. He’s got his shoes off, and he’s sitting criss cross, his sleepy head propped up on his hand. He watches Beth destroy Carl at gin rummy with a faint smile on his lips. Rick thinks he looks pretty content there, surrounded by the others. He’s come a long way, Rick fondly acknowledges. So, naturally, he crosses the room on a mission to see if he can disrupt that.

“Hey,” he says, wearing his most charming smile. He plops down on the center cushion, right beside Daryl, and throws his arm over Daryl’s shoulders. Daryl’s eyes widen and his body tenses. For a moment, Rick thinks he’s going to shuffle forward in his spot in an effort to escape Rick’s arm around his shoulders, but he doesn’t. He stays still and doesn’t breathe.

“Sorry,” Rick says. He puts on a confused frown and tilts his head in question. “Is this seat taken?”

Daryl shifts. It eases him back against Rick’s touch. “Uh…”

He blinks at Rick.

Rick raises his eyebrows.

“Uh, nah. Nah, it ain’t.”

Rick lets his smile return. “Good,” he says. He squeezes his arm around Daryl, his open palm against the bare muscle of his arm.

This is the part where Daryl should lean into Rick. Maybe run his knuckles over Rick’s knee. Something, anything, to reciprocate the touch. He doesn’t tell Rick no. He's okay with Rick touching him, just as much as he always has been, but he won’t touch _back_ , and Rick can’t figure out why. It’s gone on like this for a week, and no amount of goading has elicited the desired response.

This attempt ends up no different. Daryl doesn’t touch Rick. He stays still, except for the shiver that runs through his body. Rick feels it, and looks at him with a raised brow.

“You’re cold,” Rick says.

He rubs his hand up and down Daryl’s arm in an effort to warm him up. Daryl shrugs and keeps his eyes down, but an incriminating ruby blush springs up on his cheeks. Rick adds his other hand into the equation, and then he’s running warm hands over both Daryl’s arms.

“Need your coat? I can grab it,” Rick murmurs.

Daryl shivers again, but he says, “No. Don’t be dumb.”

Rick’s hands stop. “You’re right. Why should I get up when you can just use mine?” He starts to shrug out of his coat. He smiles up at Daryl while he works it off, and has to fight back the laugh that threatens to escape him at the sight of Daryl’s face. Red as can be, and sheer panic written in his eyes. From being offered a coat.

“I don’t need yer coat,” Daryl says.

Rick gets his arms free. “You’re cold. Don’t be dumb.” He drapes it over Daryl’s body. Rick expects to have it chucked back at him—but Daryl blinks at him, then curls up underneath the fabric. He pulls it tight around his crossed legs, wiggles his arms underneath it, and surprisingly, fits almost his whole body under the cover.

“Thanks.”

Rick’s the one who blushes then. “Sure.”

Rick eases back into the couch, arm around Daryl’s shoulders, and analyzes the feeling stirring to life inside his gut. It sort of makes him want to barf and dance at the same time.

“Screw this game! I hate it!” Carl shouts. He throws his hand at the floor and the cards fly everywhere.

“Carl!” Rick says. While Rick had been largely ignored since he came in, all eyes turn to him now—him and Daryl sitting on the three seater couch, pressed up on one end, Rick covering every part of Daryl’s body with either his arm or his coat. His face heats like he's holding it over a gas stove. He pulls his arm back so it’s resting more on the couch than on Daryl.

“Sportsmanship,” he snaps at Carl.

Carl sighs dramatically. “Sorry, Beth. Good game. But can we please play something else?”

Beth grins fiendishly and glances around at everyone else, clearly pleased that she’s inherited the attention of the room. “Maybe we can all play something together?”

“Yeah!” Carl says.

At that moment, Michonne strides in. “Am I hearing something about a game?” She collapses on the other end of the couch, kicks off her shoes, and throws her socked feet up onto Rick’s lap. It makes Rick and Daryl’s proximity much less glaring, and Rick’s grateful to her for it. He puts a thankful hand on her ankle.

“Yup, that’s what I heard,” Rick says.

“Well I’m up for it. Who else?”

Maggie shoots her sister a knowing look. “What’d you have in mind?”

“Truth or dare!”

Maggie rolls her eyes, but smiles wide. “Of course.”

Glenn shuffles his chair around so he’s facing the circle. “Well,” he glances it Maggie and shrugs. “It might be fun.”

Maggie leans over and grabs Glenn by the chin. She beams at him, love shining warmly in her eyes. “Yeah, we’ll play. But Daddy’s playin’ too, so you better keep it PG-13, cowboy.” She pats his pink cheek.

Hershel looks up from his book. “What?”

Maggie springs up and pulls Hershel over in his chair. He finishes off their little circle. “You’re playin’ truth or dare with us, Daddy,” Maggie says.

Hershel looks down at his book, like he’d really rather get back to it, then around at the mess of waiting faces. “Oh, I don’t know, honey.”

“Won’t you, Daddy?” Beth asks.

Maggie gives him a pointed look. “It was Beth’s idea. Nice way to spend time as a family, don’t you think?”

Hershel purses his lips. He folds his book closed and tucks it under his chair. Beth squeals in delight.

Rick grins and looks around the circle until his eyes land on Daryl.

 _What the hell’d we just get roped into?_ Daryl says.

 _Fun,_ Rick replies.

Beth’s bouncing with excitement. “Alright, who’d like to go first? I guess I’ll just pick. Carl! Truth or dare?”

Thus, the game commences. Patterns arise as they jump around the circle. Beth focuses on romance. She asks Carl for the truth about his first crush, then later, asks for Maggie’s story about her first kiss with Glenn. Maggie and Glenn like to bounce truths between each other, and as a result, the group learns quite a bit about the both of them. Hershel plays a mild-mannered game, asking for the truth about people’s favorite foods, or daring them to sing a song they like. Daryl picks people he knows will be brave enough to choose dare (so mostly Carl) and has them do gross things like eat a spoonful of salt, or lick the floor. Rick pinches the back of his arm with that one, and gives Daryl a half-hearted glare.

Rick murmurs with a smirk, “You’re gonna to get my kid sick, lame brain.”

“No, I ain’t! Look at ‘im! He can take it!”

Rick rolls his eyes.

Carl licks the concrete prison floor to a mix of cheers and groans. Daryl delivers most of the cheers.

Only Rick and Michonne play for blood, and naturally they latch onto each other to torment. They both make it their mission to embarrass the other by forcing them into awkward confessions or humiliating dares. It’s a brutal game, because they’re both completely shameless. Rick makes Michonne recount her most embarrassing story (in short, it involved a surprise party, a rented horse, and a serious lack of communication about the intended delivery location of said horse) and Michonne gets his (an attempt at seduction gone terribly wrong in high school). Everyone laughs as Rick explains his awkward, barely pubescent romantic fumbling, even Daryl, and so Rick tells the story in excruciating detail—all building to the bitter failure at the end. He took her on a date to the movies (well, he thought it was a date, she, apparently, was not on the same page), and he tried put an arm around her. He left his arm there for a while—until she sighed her exasperation and not-so-polietly asked him to sit in his own seat, before unhooking his arm from around her shoulders and tossing it back at him.

Everyone groans sympathetically.

“Jeez, Rick, that hurts,” Maggie says. She’s wincing so hard that it makes Rick wince, too. He chuckles through it. It’s funny now, years later, but that doesn’t mean that his face has cooled down for a moment through his recounting of the painful tale.

Michonne sits up and pinches Rick’s warm cheek. Her fingers feel like ice against his skin. “Awww,” she croons in mock sympathy. “It’s alright. At least Daryl hasn’t shaken you off yet.” The room roars with laughter.

Daryl tenses up under Rick’s arm, but to be fair, Rick clams up pretty hard himself. He desperately wants to pull his arm back, but that would only make it even more awkward. So, he swings the other direction, and doubles down. He pulls Daryl in tight against him and rattles him around in a way that, he hopes, communicates brotherly affection.

“Yeah, well, thank God for that,” Rick says, “I dunno if I could stand another heartbreak.” He ruffles Daryl’s hair.

Daryl glares at him, but sinks deeper into Rick’s side.He pulls Rick’s coat tighter around him. “S’cold,” he mutters.

“Mhm. It’s cold,” Rick says, even though the excitement in the room warmed it up ages ago. Rick rubs his hand up and down Michonne’s shin, only to make his closeness to Daryl appear more natural.

Eager to get back to more neutral ground, Rick continues on with his story. “Anyway, point is, even having my arm tossed back at me didn’t get it through my thick skull. I kissed her, and she socked me in the thigh. Left a nasty bruise, too. She stormed out, and never talked to me again. Told half the school I had lips like Shake ’n Bake breadcrumbs though.”

A thunderous guffaw breaks out in the group.

“Oh god—” Maggie says. She’s doubled over in a bad fit. “Shake ’n Bake lips?”

Rick laughs ruefully. He shrugs a shoulder. “Yeah, they were—dry, I guess? You might think there’s no way a nickname like that would stick—I mean, it doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue—but you’d be wrong. Nobody could let it go. Hell, even years later…” He thought of Shane, who hung onto that nickname way past high school. He used it constantly. “People used it as a way of sayin’ that I ain’t got any sort of game.”

Michonne rubs her socked foot on the inside of Rick’s thigh. “Oh, well I hardly think that’s fair,” she says with a sly smile.

Rick eyebrows shoot to his hairline. He tries really hard not to look at Michonne’s foot. “Uh…which part?” he asks.

“Both,” Maggie chirps up. “I’d bet you play a good game. And your lips don’t look dry at all.” She grins wickedly at him, and it punches an awkward laugh right out of Rick’s chest. He chuckles nervously and glances around to see if anyone else was noticing what was unfolding, and sure enough, found looks of horror littered throughout the circle. Glenn, Hershel, and Beth all stare at Maggie, mouths hanging. Carl makes the same face, but his eyes bounce around all of them, like he doesn’t even know who deserves his disgust the most. Daryl looks at Rick with a quirked brow, an amused smile, and a message in his eyes that reads, _Well, shit. Would you look at that?_ Maggie and Michonne look perfectly unrepentant, giggling with each other.

Glenn elbows Maggie in the side, and whispers to her, “What the hell?”

Maggie rolls her eyes and elbows him back. “Oh, relax.”

The giggling pick backs up, and Glenn looks positively bewildered.

Rick clears his throat. “Well, uh…you’re right about the uh…the lips at least. Gave me a complex that no number of years could chip away.” As evidence, Rick lifts his ass up off the couch and digs into his back pocket. He brandishes a tube of chapstick and applies a thick layer. The group laughs all the way through it, like he’s telling a joke. It’s infectious, and by the time Rick slides the tube back into his pocket, he’s chuckling, too. He smacks his lips together and grins, and it lands like a punchline.

He says, “Honestly though, I don’t have any sort of game. Never landed anybody but Lori, and that woman had the patience of a saint.”

Lori’s name sobers the room. The circle nods their agreement all around, and inaudible murmurs of agreement replace the laughter. Rick supposes it isn’t very pleasant to be reminded you’re flirting with a recent widower, and in front of his newly motherless son. He clears his throat. It wasn't intentional, but he'd tightened his grip around Daryl.

“Right, well,” Rick scans the room for a safe option. “Hershel. Truth or dare?”

Rick dares Hershel to sing an old pop song, and the jovial mood returns, rejuvenated. 

The next few turns go off without a hitch, and Rick truly believes they’ve moved past it. Hershel asks Carl what job he’d have liked to do (Sheriff, no surprise to anyone), Carl asks Glenn if he’s really in love with Maggie, and what love feels like (Glenn answers with a happy nod, sparkling eyes, and a rather poetic description of the things love does to your heart, head, and stomach), Glenn asks Maggie if she’s in love, and if so, what does it feel like (that turns the two of them into a cuddled heap affection-filled eyes, mushy sentiment, and sweet kisses, until Carl has enough and very loudly declares, “Bleh! Forget I asked! Jeez!” which sends the circle into uproarious laughter), then Maggie asks Daryl if he has ever fallen in love (“Yup.” “Care to elaborate? What was she like?” “Not the question. You’ll have to get it next time ‘round.” But Rick knows that Daryl will choose dare ’til the game ends just to ensure that nobody has the opportunity to press for more info), then Daryl asks Beth for her celebrity crush (a name that Rick forgets the moment he’s heard it, but it seems like an embarrassing answer, because Carl and Maggie both curl their noses and go, “Really?” Beth blushes brightly and quickly moves on).

“Rick,” Beth says. “Truth or dare?”

Rick feels the need to break the chain of truths. “Dare.”

Beth grin eats up half her face. It makes Rick instantly uneasy. “Ohhh no,” he says with a nervous laugh. “You’ve had somethin’ brewin’.”

She nods slowly, mischief glinting in her eyes.

Rick looks to Daryl out of habit, seeking a reassuring force to ground him, but Daryl eyes have blown up huge, and they’re locked on Beth. Daryl’s trepidation accelerates Rick’s heart; it feels like a hummingbird caught in his ribcage. Daryl can see what’s coming. Oh god, what’s coming?

“I think it’s time to redeem yourself,” Beth says. “I dare you to…” she sings.

Oh. Rick swallows. Goddamn it. He should have anticipated this.

“Kiss Daryl!”

Yup. Rick drops his head and chuckles lowly. Daryl has tensed up under this arm again. Rick lifts his gaze to meet his, and there he finds _the look_. The one that arises every time Rick touches him. Red cheeks. High brows. Wide eyes, full of fear.

Rick’s not stupid. His career as King’s County sheriff lead him into a fair amount of detective work, so he’s not bad at sticking clues together. He can fathom a decent guess as to what a look like Daryl’s might mean. His hypothesis would explain why Daryl has started responding differently to his touches. It’s one of the few logical explanations that has presented itself thus far. But Rick can’t wrap his head around it. Daryl? Having feelings for _him_? Rick wonders if he’s only seeing what he wants to see. It’s certainly a preferable explanation to the others he’s thought up: _You’ve been removed from his list,_ or _He’s started to hate you and can’t figure out how to tell you,_ or _He doesn’t trust you to be clean. He doesn’t want your germ-riddled hands on him._ Over the last week, Rick even started carrying a bottle of hand sanitizer in his back pocket beside his chapstick, and applying it often, usually, right in front of Daryl’s line of sight.

It was a ridiculous hypothesis (like Daryl, of all people, would be concerned with matters of hygiene) but Rick had to admit that his new life kept him filthy almost at all times. Pre-apocalypse Rick wouldn’t touch post-apocalypse Rick with a ten foot pole. Maybe that was the answer. Maybe his regularly dirtied, bloodied skin disgusted Daryl. 

 

The thought occurred to Rick last week, after the counsel meeting, and it stuck like glue. It rubbed at him incessantly. He knew he needed to rule it out. 

He tracked down a bottle of hand sanitizer, and decided to adopt it as his fourth child (Carl, Judy, Chapstick, Hand Sanitizer, together ’til the bitter end). Then, for one day, he managed to stay away from the garden, and the fence. He spent the day engaged in cleanly tasks, like washing the clothes and bouncing the baby. Most of his day went by working alongside Carol and Beth. While they had always taken care of things just fine on their own, they seemed to appreciate the extra set of hands, as well as the rarity of Rick’s extended attention and conversation.

Rick had managed to maintain his neat presentation by the time evening rolled around. Daryl strode in to the common room to find Rick helping Carol and Beth set out the dinner plates. Rick’s head snapped up, and he imparted his, _Hello,_ with a wide grin and his, _Nice to see you,_ with the light in his eyes.

It caught Daryl off guard to see Rick inside with the women. His loping stride slowed to a stop, and his gaze rolled over Rick, then over Beth and Carol, as he tried to piece together what had disrupted the usual work dynamic enough to keep Rick inside for the day.

Daryl himself was covered head to foot in filth—because of course he was. Between the hunting, the butchering, and the fence clearing, not a day went by that Daryl didn’t come back covered with a layer of dirt and a mist of blood. His hands had absorbed the worst of it. They looked absolutely brutish—and disgusting. Rick ducked his head and focused on straightening out the plate setting so that Daryl wouldn’t see the adoration written all over his face.

Stumped by Rick’s presence in the kitchen, Daryl made the safe bet and asked if they needed his help. Carol dismissed the offer and shooed him off to the showers, but Rick cut in.

“That would be great actually. Daryl and I will finish this up. Why don’t you two go sit? Rest your feet for a while?”

Daryl gave Rick a confused look, but nodded his agreement, and Carol and Beth migrated to the sitting area with appreciative nods to the both of them. Daryl strode over to the cabinets holding the silverware and tugged the drawer open.

“Whoa, slow down,” Rick said with a laugh. “Your hands are filthy.”

“Oh,” Daryl said. He looked down at his hands, as if noticing their state for the first time.

Rick laughed and shook his head. “You really don’t pay attention to that sort of thing, do you?”

Daryl shrugged.

Rick tugged Daryl by the elbow and set him in line with a wash bucket sitting atop an end table. He dragged his dry hand down Daryl’s filth-speckled forearm, and lined his hands up above the bucket. Rick held him there by the wrist as he rummaged through the drawer for the soap. He squirted a few pumps into Daryl’s hands.

“Rub,” he instructed, like Daryl didn’t know how to wash his own freaking hands. But Daryl had just been staring at the soap pooled in his palms, and Rick’s words powered his brain on and got the right movements started. Rick picked up the water pitcher and poured it over Daryl’s hands as he worked the soap into a lather.

“There somethin’ goin’ on with those two?” Daryl asked.

“Nah,” Rick said. He turned Daryl’s hands over with a gentle tug and rinsed the soap off the backs. “It’s just nice to mix things up every now and then. I wanted to give Beth a break from Judy. I had a nice time with the three of them today. It was a good chance to talk with Carol.”

“Carol?”

Rick threw a towel on top of Daryl’s hands. Daryl dried himself off.

“Yeah, Carol.” Rick pulled out his hand sanitizer and squeezed a generous dollop out onto his own hand.

“What the hell were you talkin’ to Carol about?” Daryl asked.

Rick looked at him with a quirked brow. He yanked the towel away and replaced it with his own sanitizer slicked hands. He rubbed the cool liquid into both their skin by pulling his hands over Daryl’s. Daryl didn’t seem to notice. He stared at Rick with a furrowed brow and a tight frown.

“What, am I not allowed?” Rick asked with a smirk. Daryl’s expression intensified. Rick snorted through his nose. Apparently not. Interesting. His conversation with Carol had been perfectly innocuous. Talk about the before times, and how those first few days went for Carol. They discussed the group, and how it had changed over time. Who had changed the most since the start.

He dropped his gaze down to his hands. He felt Daryl’s eyes follow. Rick wound his fingers into Daryl’s and pulled through. “We talked about you.”

Rick kept his hands moving softly over Daryl’s, even when the sanitizer started to go tacky.

“About—about me?” Daryl’s voice sounded faint. His eyes had dropped to their tangled, moving hands.

And written on his face—bingo. _The look_. It manifested as the very worst presentation of it yet. Of course there were the red cheeks, and the eyes, but on top of it all, Daryl wasn’t even breathing. Which, for some reason, made Rick’s chest feel painfully tight. It must have been out of sympathy. A case of sympathy-induced respiratory failure.

“Mhm,” Rick confirmed. He needed to get away. End it now, before he collapsed due to insufficient oxygen. He patted the back of Daryl’s pink hand. “There we go,” he said. “Doesn’t get any cleaner than that.”

They finished serving up dinner without another word to one another. And when they settled in to eat with the others, they sat side by side, but turned away from one another, each holding their dinner conversations with opposite ends of the table.

Rick listened to Daryl explain the mechanics of fishing to Carl with half an ear. He tried to focus on his conversation with Glenn and Maggie, but Daryl’s rasping drawl over his shoulder kept pulling his attention. Daryl had managed to get Carl enthusiastic and asking questions about fishing, which Rick had failed to do on a number of occasions. Carl asked how to know what kind of baits to use, and Daryl dove into a expert explanation, complete with wild gestures, changing inflections, and follow up comprehension questions for Carl. Rick smiled down at his plate. Just as Daryl launched into outlining the different types of catfish, and the best kind of bait for each, Rick pressed his leg against Daryl’s mud-crusted, jean-clad thigh. The words died in Daryl’s throat.

“Daryl?” Carl said. “Are you okay?”

Rick dove back into his own conversation, so he didn’t hear Daryl’s response, but after a few moments, the undercurrent rumble of Daryl’s voice picked back up. Rick left his thigh against Daryl’s for the rest of the meal. Daryl’s leg didn’t move an inch.

 

So, Daryl definitely wasn’t adverse to Rick touching him. Daryl had never had any qualms about pulling away from an unwelcome touch, but he never pulled away from Rick.

Yet, he remained a passive participant in all their interactions. For days, Rick had tested it whenever he could. A hand on the shoulder, a pat on the back, a brush of fingertips, a handshake, a hug, it didn’t matter. Daryl hadn’t reciprocated a lick. He wouldn’t even hug Rick back! He just stood straight as a stick and didn’t breathe until Rick pulled away.

After five days of failure, Rick decided he had to get Daryl to touch him back. He didn't need an explanation for the strange behavior, but he had to at least find a way for things to return to normal. They could go back to being close, the way they used to be.

The constant touching had surely hinted something amiss to Daryl, so Rick refrained for the next couple days. Until he walked into the common room and saw Daryl huddled up in the far corner of the couch, all by himself. Temptation took over. Now, he's facing the consequences of his rash (and glaringly forward) decision. He came on to Daryl so obviously that even Beth, sweet, innocent Beth, picked up on it.

“Elizabeth Amelia Greene!” Hershel says.

“ _What_ , Daddy?”

Hershel speaks slowly. Each word sounds like a punctuated sentence all on its own. “You can’t go asking two men to kiss one another.”

Daryl’s body coils up tighter under Rick’s arm. Rick feels himself tense up, too.

“But why not? He’s got his arm around him! If he kisses Daryl, it’ll make up for that terrible story of his date at the movies. And Daryl can tell us if he’s still got Shake ’n Bake lips,” Beth says with a huge grin.

Hershel presses his lips together and shakes his head. “That was a date, between a man and a woman. You can’t dare Rick to kiss another man. Pick something else.”

“But Daddy—!”

“You’ll pick something else! Now!”

Beth looks over at Rick with huge, guilt-riddled eyes and a confused frown. She quickly drops her eyes, and they dart back and forth as she wracks her brain for a replacement dare. 

Rick shakes his head hard and huffs through his nose. He feels everyone’s eyes turn toward him. His body shakes all over; he’s vibrating in his seat. He huffs again. Shakes his head again. Finally, his head whips up. His eyes meet Hershel’s dead on.

“No,” Rick said. “I’m sorry, Hershel, but no.”

“No?”

“You’re wrong. This is me telling you that you’re wrong about this.” Rick unhooks his arm from around Daryl, and leans forward in his seat, elbows on his knees. He clasps his hands tight together and wills them to be still. He can’t quite manage it.

Rick says, “I haven’t heard you be so wrong about somethin’ since the barn. And I didn’t say anything then, I just let things continue on your way. I regret it still. I’m not making that mistake again.”

Hershel says lightly, “Well it’s hardly a matter of opinion. This is God’s word we’re talking about here.”

Rick’s eyelids fall to half-mast. “An interpretation of God’s word. _Man’s_ interpretation.”

“Are you arguing that it’s natural?”

“It is. There’s nothin’ unnatural about it. Just two people. Love for one another. A kiss is nothin’ but an expression of that.”

Hershel raises his eyebrows and laughs in a way that’s unmistakably condescending. Rick’s nose wrinkles. 

He turns toward Beth. “You know, I think that’s a fine dare,” Rick says, a bit louder than’s necessary. “An excellent idea. Maybe this time I’ll escape without a bruise on my thigh. How do you like my chances?”

Beth blinks at him. He doesn’t wait for her answer. Rick rotates his whole body on the couch toward Daryl, leans in, and presses the lightest of kisses to Daryl’s lips. It couldn’t possibly be more chaste. It lasts less than half a second and Rick punctuates it with a loud smooching sound. Daryl huffs a breathless laugh when Rick pulls away.

Rick turns to Hershel and levels a look at him that dares him to object. A few tense seconds pass where nobody says anything at all. They all look to Hershel, and Hershel looks to Rick.

Finally, Hershel shrugs, like he couldn’t be bothered to consider the topic any further. “Forgive me for trying to save you boys from the embarrassment. I didn’t want you two to feel obligated on account of my daughter.”

“Do I look embarrassed, Hershel?”

“ _You_ don’t.”Hershel's eyes jump over to Daryl.

If Daryl’s blush becomes any brighter, he might turn into a damn tomato. Despite the obvious, Daryl quickly blurts out, “I’m not embarrassed.”

“See?” Rick says. He leans back against the couch and wraps his arm around Daryl. “Nothin’ to worry ‘bout. His face just looks like that.”

Daryl elbows him in the ribs. “Fuck off,” he says.

Rick laughs and pinches the back of his arm. Everyone turns to look at Hershel, but his expression appears effortfully neutral. He pinches his lips, shrugs again, and it’s clear he has no intention of saying anything more. The tension eases out of the room.

Rick squeezes Daryl tight against his side. “Thanks for not sockin’ me. I feel very redeemed,” he says.

Daryl snorts and smirks at Rick.

“Well?” Michonne says. She kicks her feet back up on Rick’s lap.

Rick blinks at her. “Well, what?”

She shoots a glance at Daryl with a raised brow. “You gonna gonna tell us? How did Shake ’n Bake’s lips feel?”

Daryl laughs. He sinks down under Rick’s coat. He chews his lip for a second, then mumbles his reply. “Soft’r than a bunny’s backside.”

The room erupts with laughter.

Rick’s cheeks burn. “I told y’all.”


	3. Chapter 3

Daryl groans and kicks his feet up on the coffee table. He looks an awful mess, all sprawled out, rubbing his bulging belly, and with the top button of his jeans unfastened. It’s a state Rick could easily imagine Merle existing in on a semi-regular basis before the fall, but on Daryl it looks peculiar. It’s a rare sight to see Daryl so unguarded. Rick kicks the coffee table out from under him, and huffs an amused laugh when his legs fall with a thunk. Daryl groans louder.

“Don’t,” he says. He waves his arm at Rick’s towering form standing over him—a lame attempt to chase him off. Rick dodges the move with a quirked brow. “Leave m’be.” He hides his face in the crook of his elbow. “Just lemme rest.”

“Will you hush?” Rick says, barely pinching back his grin. “We don’t know if this place is secure. There could be walkers come scratchin’ at our door any minute, the way you’re carryin’ on.”

“Yeah, well go kill ‘em then. Make yerself useful,” Daryl says. He pulls a throw pillow out from under his back and lobs it at Rick’s head. It misses terribly; Rick doesn’t even make an effort to dodge and it sails wide over his shoulder nonetheless. Daryl doesn’t notice. He burrows deeper into the couch and sighs happily.

“Daryl!” Rick shoves Daryl’s shoulder. Daryl growls his complaint and swats Rick’s hand away. “You can’t take a nap! Do you got any idea how far you led us out? At this rate, who knows if we make it back before dark.”

“So then we don’t. Let’s just stay here. I can’t go back out there anyway.” He waves a weak hand at the front door. “I can’t be all sneaky ’n’ shit. All that runnin’ ‘round. Crouchin’. Hell nah. I feel like a goddamn walrus.”

Rick snorts and rolls his eyes. He taps the toe of his boot against Daryl’s. “Yeah, well maybe if you just packed up that stuff like I told you.”

The coffee table is covered with empty beer bottles and bowls licked clean. At one point, it boasted an impressive spread of tortilla chips, bean dip, and salsa. The chips tasted stale, and the dips were plain, but still—it felt like a little slice of heaven when it was all going down. Until Daryl stuffed himself full to the brim, immobilized by childlike excitement and a startling lack of impulse control.

“We found limes," Daryl says. "Fresh limes. And tomatoes… I couldn’t just pack that up without tryin’ ‘em out.”

Rick sighs, and lets the fond grin finally slip through his defenses. What’s it matter? It’s not like Daryl’s looking anyway. “We can’t stay here. It’s no good.” He says it gently—the way one might to coax a walrus awake. Even if Daryl didn’t feel like moving, Rick’s job was to deliver him home safe. He’d throw the oaf over his shoulder and carry him the whole way back if he had to.

Their run had taken them to a new section of neighborhood—fancy homes, each of them two stories tall, with extra rooms, big backyards, and marble countertops. The windows went floor to ceiling, and there weren’t any materials to board them over, which made them crap defensively. However, the area had it’s benefits: spacious rooms, so no tight corners. Low population meant fewer walkers. And some of the homes had fancy systems rigged up that ensured their automated sprinklers stayed on to water their vegetable gardens, come hell, high water, or the worldwide apocalypse.

They had picked through half the neighborhood before they arrived at the house they’re sitting in now. Daryl had lead them through the side yard on the standard check of their building’s perimeter before entering. They opened the creaking wooden gate to the backyard, and Daryl’s eyes landed on the overgrown tangles of a thriving garden. He lit up like a child on Christmas morning. He bounded through the yard, weaving this way and that, examining all the plants that had maintained their vibrance, and plucking anything edible.

He dropped to his knees in a dense patch of green. Every part of him but the back of his head and the tops of his shoulders disappeared from view. “Look at this, Rick!” he cried, holding it high in the air. A bright red ball, clutched tight in his muddied fist. “Tomato!”

By the time he had finished picking, he’d heaped his arms with all sorts of vegetables. His grin took up nearly his whole face. “C’mon. We gonna eat!” he said. How on earth could Rick possibly tell him no? Finding the chips and beer in the kitchen was just the sprinkles on top. It turned their run into a party, table for two.

“Only you could eat yourself sick off a vegetable garden.”

“And five beers.”

Rick rolls his eyes. “And five beers.”

Rick drank one himself, but Daryl took the liberty of polishing off the rest of the pack on his behalf.

“Wouldn’t wanna burden you with the microbrew,” he had mumbled around the mouthpiece of the fourth bottle.

“My hero,” Rick had said. He patted Daryl’s cheek. Daryl didn’t even blush, just grinned cheekily at Rick and sucked the beer down. The neutral response hadn’t surprised Rick. Over the last few days, Daryl achieved a certain level of desensitization to Rick’s touch. He blushes much less often now.

Daryl arches his back up off the couch and groans with the stretch. He rubs his belly. “Why can’t we stay here tonight?” Daryl says. He raises his arm off his eyes, glances around the posh living room. “We can. No reason why not. I’ll push some furniture round. Stack ‘em up front of those windows there.” He buries his face back away. “I’ll make it work, honey,” he says with a dismissive (and uncharacteristically flamboyant) wave of his hand.

Rick eyebrows shoot up, and he blinks down at Daryl. Then he laughs out loud. Honey? That’s new. Honey wasn’t a word meant for Daryl Dixon’s mouth. Yet it rolled off his tongue effortlessly. Yes, he said it jokingly, but…still. Honey. It knocked the fight right out of Rick. He shrugs his defeat. “Whatever you say, Buttercup. You wanna stay, we’ll stay.”

Rick watches the part of Daryl’s face peeking out from under his arm flush.

Rick’s stomach leaps into his throat. Is that… _the look_? It couldn’t possibly be… Rick hasn’t touched him. His eyes—he needs to see Daryl’s eyes. Rick reaches forward for Daryl’s wrist on instinct, to pull his arm off his face, but then stops dead, hand twitching in midair. No. He can’t touch him now. It will invalidate the half-formed hypothesis swirling around in his head.

Rick swallows hard. He lets his hand drop. “Daryl?”

Daryl’s head rotates a fraction of an inch toward him.

“Look at me,” Rick says.

Daryl lifts his arm to reveal a brow furrowed deep with confusion. “Wha’s the matter?”

“Lift your head. Sit up.”

Daryl instantly morphs into the model image of stoicism, all complaints of salsa-beer belly, forgotten. “What?” he says. His eyes search Rick’s for explanation. When he finds nothing but a barrier wall and Rick’s furrowed brow, he sucks in a hard breath and stands. He plants himself in front of Rick. “Are you hurt?”

Rick lets his eyes scan over Daryl’s face, unabashed. No, it’s not _the look_. It’s too intense. The fear displayed feels different. Deeper. Like he’s actually worried Rick might have gotten hurt. That must be it—the context is biasing the observable result. No choice but to reintroduce the stimulus, and observe the results again, unimpeded.

“No, no. I’m fine. It’s just that… You know…” Rick says. He leans in a little bit, cocks his head. His eyes trace the curve of Daryl’s face, starting at his forehead, down his cheek, over his chin… Then, he cocks his head the other way, and repeats. As his eyes move, he sees the flush raise on Daryl’s cheeks. Rick nods, licks his lips. Stares at Daryl’s mouth. At his rounded nose. His eyes. He lets his gaze rest there. “I think that name suits you even better than Daryl. I think I’m gonna go ahead and use that from now on. That okay with you, Buttercup?”

Daryl’s response is glaring, and immediate. “Hell no!” he says. “The fuck’s the matter with you?” But there it is. _The look_. Plain as day, written all across his face. And Rick’s hands stayed comfortably on his hips the whole time! No touching necessary. What would happen if…? Time to test it.

Rick laughs. He claps his open palm in the crook between Daryl’s neck and shoulder, and leans in to press their foreheads together, same as he used to do with Shane, and Daryl himself, on one or two occasions.

Daryl sucks in a breath so hard it sends him into a coughing fit. He ducks out of Rick’s grip and scrambles backwards, but his leg gets caught on the edge of the askew coffee table. The stumble drops him to the floor with a surprised shout. He lands hard on his ass.

For a moment, they’re both just staring at each other with wide eyes. Then, slowly, a disbelieving smile creeps up Rick’s face. Laughter bubbles out of him in a snort, then a giggle, and all at once, he’s utterly lost to it, laughing hysterically at Daryl’s bewildered face and his figure thrown haphazardly across the living room floor.

“What the fuck, Rick?!” Daryl says.

Rick doubles over. He pinches the bridge of his nose and tries hard to swallow down the laughter, but it keeps slipping through. His shoulders shake with it.

“What the fuck?” Daryl says. He snatches a throw pillow and chucks it. It lands square on Rick, but he hardly notices it through the laughing. He wheezes and rubs an open palm over his face.

“Jesus christ, Buttercup.” He sticks out a hand. “Here. C’mon.”

Daryl glares up at him. He scowls at Rick’s extended hand like it’s an insult to his character. He gets to his feet without Rick’s help, and shoulders Rick on his way past.

“I ain’t no goddamn Buttercup.” He slams the door behind him. His voice comes muffled from the other room. “Keep that name out your mouth, Grimes!”

***

Daryl holds the board against the door while Rick hammers the nails in. This is the last one before they’ve completely barricaded themselves in the upstairs bedroom. After a lazy afternoon on stuffed bellies, they unanimously decided against fortifying the whole house—it would take hours, and they would have had to pull up the floorboards of the whole living room to have enough wood. They only really needed a bedroom for the night anyway, and lucky them, they found one upstairs with a window that opens to the rooftop, in case the house fills up with an unexpected horde and they need an escape route. Rick’s not worried though. They’ve only seen two lone walkers the entire time they’d spent on this side of town. They just have to keep quiet, and really, how much noise could the two of them possibly make in a bedroom?

It’s a small room—not the master, but it’s still got a bathroom to itself and a double bed. Otherwise, there’s not much to speak of. A dresser, but no clothes in it, and a nightstand with a table lamp. The previous occupants had made the bed (tucked sheet corners and all) before they left. As a result, the place possesses the air of a modest hotel room. It’s rather nice, actually.

“There,” Rick says with the last pound of his hammer. He tests the board by leaning his weight against it. It holds, no problem. The benefits of expensive wood flooring. These uppity neighborhoods come with a number of unexpected benefits for the apocalypse. It wouldn’t be so bad to live in a place like this. A gated community, maybe. Can’t make a home without walls these days.

Daryl yawns with his arms stretched above his head. It’s only just settling into twilight, but they’d left at dawn, and had to wake even earlier to prep for their trip. He must be tired.

“Sleep,” Rick says. “I’ll keep watch.” He dumps the hammer and remaining nails on the dresser. His coat’s bulky and in the way, so he slips it off. Then he does his shoes too, just ‘cause it’s the sort of day where he feels comfortable enough to do so.

“Alright,” Daryl says. He yawns again, stumbling towards the bed. He forgave the, ‘Buttercup,’ incident before even an hour had passed. If Rick didn’t know better, he’d say that Daryl had forgotten about it entirely. Except ever since, Daryl’s cheeks flush at random. Sometimes they’ll just make eye contact and Daryl’s face will explode with color.

Daryl kicks off his shoes and moves to climb into bed. Rick’s grunt stops him in his tracks. “Whah?” Daryl asks sleepily, one knee on the mattress.

Rick’s eyes run over him. They linger on his knee, muddied from the garden, and pressing dirt into the clean white sheets.

“I’m not sleepin’ in that bed with all your filth. Take your clothes off before you get in,” Rick says. He sits down on the end of the bed with his back to Daryl to give him the privacy to strip down. He inspects his fingernails.

“What am I s’posed to wear?”

“Your underwear?” Rick says, like it’s stupidly simple and Daryl should have known the answer. Never mind that most times they sleep fully clothed, shoes and all, in case they need to make a quick getaway.

Daryl doesn’t say anything. But after a few painfully quiet moments, Rick hears the tell-tale sound of Daryl’s belt buckle. The metallic clicks stir up something in Rick’s groin. Oh. He hadn’t anticipated that reaction from himself. Perhaps he didn't think this through. The _flump_ of Daryl’s jeans hitting the floor around his ankles causes the heat to spread over Rick's whole body. It tingles over his skin. He picks at his cuticle.

There’s another _flump_ (Daryl’s shirt), and a fabric rustle (the blankets), a squeak from the bedsprings as Daryl eases himself down, and finally, another fabric rustle. Rick glances over his shoulder, to see Daryl with the blankets up to his chin, his eyes closed. The heat under Rick’s skin curls into a soft light nestled in his core.

***

Three hours later, Rick’s head keeps bobbing. Daryl’s comforter-muffled snores sound rhythmic and sweet, and Rick feels as if he’s being rocked to sleep by them. In, and out. In, and out. Blissful. He steals another glance at Daryl (he’s been stealing them all night), and hums happily. Daryl looks rumpled and relaxed. Rick desperately needs sleep; he’s barely capable of keeping watch at this point, but the idea of waking Daryl makes his chest ache with a sorry sort of flutter.

Rick stands up, stretches, and groans. His body has stiffened up from sitting so long. He checks the boards across the bedroom door again, then sticks his head out the window to survey the street below. Nothing of note. The night is silent. The sound of the window shutting stirs Daryl a bit. He rolls from his side onto his back, his arms thrown above his head. The blankets have inched down, and now the top half of his chest lays exposed. Rick blinks down at him. He stares and stares. Minutes pass, and he’s staring still, and he realizes he can’t look away because he thinks Daryl looks handsome laying there. He’s got so much bare skin on his chest. It’s a little dirty, and a little hairy, and a little scarred, but a fast-growing attachment to every inch of it overwhelms Rick’s senses, and he’s trapped, standing over Daryl, staring. He wants to touch him. His fingertips tingle with the desire to brush over that captivating, warm expanse. He could do it. Rick could extend his arm and press his hand against him, skin to skin. He could lay an open palm over Daryl’s chest and feel his heart thudding deep inside him. He could. It probably wouldn’t even disturb his sleep.

Eventually Daryl shifts a bit, and fear of being caught standing over him forces Rick’s brain back online. He diverts his eyes and takes a few deliberate steps away, to the furthest corner of the room.

Exhaustion makes his head spin. He looks back at the bed. Daryl’s only sleeping on half of it. There’s enough room for Rick, and it would be so easy to crawl in beside him. It’s almost like Daryl wants him to, the way that he’s left so much empty space. Rick can pretend at least.

Carefully, his gaze drifts back to the rise and fall of Daryl’s chest. Rick wants to climb in, wrap himself around Daryl, put his cheek on his chest, and sleep that way, pressed tight against one another. He could never—he knows he could never. Still, the desire prods at him.

His shirt falls discarded on the floor before Rick realizes he’s made a decision. He fumbles with his holster, then his belt, and that’s when the commotion yanks Daryl out of his light sleep. He sits straight up.

“Rick?” he asks in a sleep-heavy voice. He rubs at his eyes.

Rick shushes him. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.” He pushes his pants down his legs as casually as he can, trying to look like stripping down in front of Daryl doesn’t faze him in the slightest. When the paleness of his thighs reveal themselves to the darkened room, Daryl gasps softly in surprise and looks away. He rubs both hands over his eyes.

“My turn for watch?”

Rick pulls off his socks. “No need. It’s quiet out there, has been for hours. We’re fine. Go back to sleep.” He tosses back the comforter and climbs into bed, careful to leave an appropriate amount of space between him and Daryl. Even though in a ideal world, he’d plaster himself against Daryl’s side, he can’t get away with that now. If he touches Daryl, it will scare him right out of bed and across the room. He adjusts himself carefully, so there’s no chance of their skin accidentally brushing against each other.

Daryl hasn’t laid back down. “I should keep watch. We don’t want anythin’ sneakin’ up on us.”

“I’m tellin’ you it’s fine. We both need the rest.” He burrows deeper into the bed and sighs happily, as if to illustrate his point.

“Someone always keeps watch.”

“It’s fine. Trust me. C’mon, Daryl. I want you to sleep with me.” Rick’s face heats as soon as the words stumble out of his mouth. That came out wrong. He doesn't dare look at Daryl. It seems to do the trick though—another few seconds of silence lapse between them, and then Daryl flops back down. Rick’s stomach explodes with butterflies.

Laying in a bed next to Daryl deliberately not touching isn’t exactly what he had in mind, but it’s pretty sweet nonetheless. It’s warm under the blankets from Daryl’s heat, and his weight on the other side of the bed comforts Rick. Within seconds, sleep tugs at him, and he starts to drift, every bit of his fading consciousness focused on Daryl in the bed beside him.

Something doesn’t feel right, Rick realizes, and as soon as he does, he’s wide awake. He shifts a bit, to see if it’s his position. Wiggles his head into the pillow. Stretches his legs out. Takes a couple deep breaths, and—

And that’s when he locates the problem. It’s Daryl: his breathing is all wrong.

Daryl has been laying stone still since he decided to forgo his watch shift. Rick assumed he’d fallen back asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but—no. Daryl’s breathing too fast to be sleeping. It’s not abnormally fast; he’s not breathing as if he’s winded, but for every one of Rick’s slow, deep breaths, Daryl squeezes in two. Why would he pretend to sleep? Unless…

All at once, with astounding clarity, Rick realizes that he’s rattled Daryl’s nerves by crawling into bed with him—their proximity alone heightens Daryl anxiety. Rick would put money on the fact that Daryl’s wearing a pretty blush right now. He doesn’t even have to touch him, as evidenced now, and earlier, by the ‘Buttercup’ incident. Daryl’s reaction to physical contact was never the problem itself. It’s only a symptom.

There’s a single explanation, and it’s the one that’s been rattling around in his hopeful head for weeks now: Daryl’s attracted to him. Just the thought floods Rick’s cock with the first eager pricklings of want. It’s not that Daryl doesn’t like his touch—it’s the opposite. Daryl likes his touch _too much_. Rick suppresses a pleased groan. That stifled energy has to go somewhere though, and he wriggles in the bed. Daryl’s next breath sounds sharper. Rick’s arousal hits him at full force.

Oh, what Rick wouldn’t give to get inside Daryl’s head right now. Is he thinking about sweet kisses, skin against skin, whispered promises of tomorrow? A scene of domestic bliss between them that couldn’t exist now, but could, maybe, one day, after a few months spent establishing a new romantic comfort between them? Or has Daryl’s head flooded with images of Rick rolling over on top of him, slipping his tongue into Daryl’s mouth, grinding him down into the bed to the sound of Daryl’s gasping pants? Their sweaty chests sticking to one another, their cocks rubbing over one another, only two thin layers of fabric between them…?

Rick’s hips twitch forward hopefully. His cock has hardened. What if that _is_ what Daryl’s thinking about? It could be. And if that’s the case, it wouldn’t matter if Rick decided to take action to make the fantasy into reality. Maybe Daryl’s hard, too. It’d be cruel to leave him like that. Why deny Daryl what he wants, when Rick wants it just as badly?

Rick’s breathing outpaces Daryl’s now. It’s loud in the quiet room. Rick’s face heats. He’s getting ahead of himself. He can’t assume that Daryl’s mind has gone to the same filthy place as his—Daryl’s attraction to him hasn’t yet graduated from hypothesis to theory. Further testing is required.

Let’s review the facts. Daryl gets flustered, as evidenced by the appearance of _the look_ when Rick touches him. However, the same response can be observed in reaction to certain speech (Buttercup), and Rick suspects, certain scenarios (like sharing a bed). It appears that, in general, intimacy with Rick makes Daryl nervous. It supports Rick’s hypothesis that Daryl’s attracted to him, but can’t prove it alone. So, Rick can’t roll over on top Daryl and fuck him senseless, because there’s a fair chance his hypothesis lacks merit. If that’s the case, crossing that boundary by touching Daryl in an unwelcome way will undoubtedly get Rick booted off the permission list. That would be wholly unacceptable, and Rick refuses to risk it.

Rick’s cock doesn’t like this conclusion, and decides to complain. To get it to shut up, Rick rubs the heel of his hand over it carefully. But the shift of his arm rustles the blanket, and the fabric of his boxers hisses under his hand, and Daryl hears. Oh god, he hears. Of course he does, he's the hunter, nothing slips past his detection. Daryl’s breath stops entirely. And Rick’s cock pulses at the blissful sensation of Daryl’s attention.

Rick can’t help himself—he palms over his length again. He spreads his legs a bit, presses his hand over himself again, even harder. It’s so good, Rick back curls off the bed a little. Daryl’s breathing sounds shaky now. It’s almost like he’s touching Daryl, not himself.

Rick can’t touch Daryl—but surely, there’s no rule against him touching himself? His cock has leaked sticky precome all over his boxers. He’s so hard, he can hardly think of anything else. He wants to pull his cock out, run a fast hand over his length, and come while laying in bed next to Daryl.

He tests the waters. Another hard rub over himself, followed by a soft groan. Subtle, but unmistakable. Daryl has to know what he’s doing now—and he doesn’t react. He stays stone still, perfectly poised except for his erratic breathing. Okay. Not exactly promising, but far from discouraging. Time to take the plunge. Rick sets up an even pace with his hand, no longer making an effort to hide what his movements mean.

“Daryl?” Rick says after a moment. His voice sounds a little breathless.

Daryl groans out a question mark. He clearly meant it to sound half-awake. Sticking to his, ‘been asleep this whole time,’ act, then. Fine. If he insists, then Rick will just have to fill him in on the current situation.

“I’m hard,” Rick ‘Subtlety’ Grimes announces. His hips rock against his working hand. He cranes his neck back and groans to underline the urgency of the situation.

Daryl doesn’t say anything. He’s frozen up again.

“Daryl?” Rick says. “Did you hear me? I can’t sleep like this. Do you mind?”

It takes a few more seconds before Daryl finds his voice. When he does, it’s thick and nearly incoherent. “Oh. Uh. Um. What?”

“Do you mind? If I jerk it real fast? It won't take long, I swear.”

Daryl’s quiet.

His hand’s next pass over his cock hits him just right. He moans and his eyes flutter shut. “Daryl?” Rick asks, voice climbing. He needs to get a hand wrapped around his cock, _now_. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Daryl denies him. He doesn’t have the strength to will away an arousal so demanding. They’re boarded in here, so he can’t exactly sneak into another room for a quick one. There’s the bathroom, but Daryl would still be subject to all the lewd noises, just slightly muffled by the door. Rick imagines a nighttime, rooftop jerk, surrounded by cold air, sitting on the scratchy shingles. It sounds entirely unappealing, but it may have just become his Plan B.   _Please don't make me pursue Plan B._

“It’s—” Daryl swallows thickly. “—fine.”

“Ohhh, thank you,” Rick groans. He pulls himself out over the waistband of his boxers, spits in his palm, and turns his attention toward pumping his fist over his cock. The room fills with the sound of his precome slicked hand moving over his length, accompanied by his satisfied groans. He moves fast, and focuses on getting the job done as quickly as possible. He’s so lost to the sensation of his fast moving hand that, for a few minutes, he forgets about Daryl. When Rick refocuses his attention on him, his balls alert him of his suddenly fast approaching orgasm.

Daryl’s breathing is labored. Oh god—has he? Has he started touching himself, too? No. He’s not moving. So he’s breathing like that because—because the sound of Rick jacking himself has turned Daryl on. Daryl would never willingly let himself sound so debauched. He can’t help it then. Rick’s made him lose all control.

“ _Oh_ ,” Rick says, and his cock pulses come in stripes across his stomach.

He strokes himself through it, groaning loud and steadily, like a power generator. When the last pump of come flicks across his shirt, the tension lets out of his body. He goes limp with a satisfied sigh.

And it’s painfully silent. Only not, really. They’re both breathing heavily into the quiet night, although for entirely different reasons. Daryl’s probably hard enough to hurt by now. Sympathy possesses Rick to say, “Your turn.”

“What?” Daryl says sharply.

Rick tucks himself back into his boxers. “Your turn. Go ahead. I don’t mind.”

Daryl’s head shifts on the pillow. Rick turns to meet his eyes. Rick can make out the larger details of his face in the white moonlit room. They have one of those untranslatable conversations. Daryl spends most of it saying, ‘No way,’ and Rick spends it saying, ‘It’s fine.’ But in the end, Daryl’s outnumbered by Rick and his own cock, and loses the debate. They both turn their eyes to the ceiling. Daryl slips a hand under the covers, under his boxers, and around his cock.

Rick does his best to stay very still. He doesn’t want to do anything that could set Daryl off and cause him to stop prematurely. Rick wants to hear him come. So, he doesn’t move a muscle, breathes as casually as possible, and focuses on committing to memory the sound of Daryl touching himself.

Only Daryl’s practically silent. The blankets shift in a way that lends insight to the pace of Daryl’s hand on his cock, but he’s moving slowly, and the only sounds from his mouth are when he occasionally sucks in a fresh lungful of air through his parted lips.

Rick rolls onto his side to face Daryl, and it earns him a surprised gasp. The butterflies in Rick’s belly take off in an overeager frenzy. He loves being able to pull a reaction like this out of Daryl. How hard can he press on this boundary erected between them before it gives?

Daryl steals a glance out the corner of his eye. When he sees Rick laying there, watching his profile, a whimper slips out of him. He quickly redirects his eyes. “Sorry,” Daryl says, high and tight.

“Don’t be. You don’t have to try to be quiet. I didn’t.”

Daryl lets the air out of his lungs like they’re a pressurized gas can that’s had the valve wheel turned.

Rick shifts closer. “That’s it,” he says. His own voice sounds strained. There’s an edge of desperation to it, and an inherent plea in his words.

Daryl keeps his place maddeningly slow. His eyes are pinched shut, and he’s frowning. He looks like he’s concentrating hard. Again, Rick craves knowledge on Daryl’s thoughts. He wishes he could ask. ‘Are you thinking about me?’ he wants to say. Daryl would moan and speed up his stroke and fist his hands in the blankets. ‘Yes,’ he’d reply. ‘Every part of you.’ That’s what would happen, if the world was perfect. Unfortunately, their world is filled with walkers and nothing close to perfect.

Another little sound escapes Daryl. Rick wiggles over. He’s all but touching Daryl now. “There you go. See, it feels better when you let go. Right?”

Daryl doesn’t respond, but the next whimper sounds a lot like an agreement to Rick. His hand hasn’t picked up any speed. There’s none of the typical sounds of jerking. He’s not moving fast enough.

“You can speed up. Those sounds don’t bother me either.” Even to Rick’s own ears, it sounds closer to a request than a concession.

It crumbles something of Daryl’s defenses. He lets out a loud groan and starts pumping his hand over his cock the way he needs. His breathing comes out hard and irregular. The sounds of it jumpstarts Rick’s heart, and all of a sudden, he’s breathing just as messy and out of sync as Daryl.

“God,” Rick says under his breath. But he’s only inches from Daryl’s ear, and there’s no way it went unnoticed.

As if to prove that he’d heard, the rhythmic sounds increases in tempo and Daryl says, after a tight gasp, “Shit.”

“That’s right,” Rick says breathlessly. Unable to restrain himself, Rick leans in a little more.

His nose presses against the bare skin of Daryl’s upper arm, and Daryl comes.

It hits him like a punch to the gut. The air rushes out of his lungs, and he grunts out, “Oof,” from the force of it. His body twitches as it rolls over him in tidal waves. Rick can smell it—the salty aroma of Daryl’s release. He breathes in deep, his nose still pressed firmly against Daryl’s skin. He rubs the tip of his nose against the hard muscle.

Pride washes over him. There's really only one conclusion Rick can come to as they lay side by side, in post-orgasmic bliss: his hypothesis is true. Daryl wants him.

Before he can overthink it, he presses his lips against Daryl’s arm.


	4. Chapter 4

Daryl’s ass hits the floor with a painful-sounding _thunk_. Rick bolts upright and stares, mouth agape, at the sheet-tangled mess of limbs sprawled out over the bedroom floor. Daryl blinks up at him, every bit as shocked as Rick to find himself on the hardwood floor. There’s an accusation in his eyes, as if Rick pushed him out of bed, instead of him catapulting out of his own volition. He’s wearing _the look_ , but this time, Rick finds it annoying rather than endearing. Is this how Daryl plans to react every time Rick gathers the courage to make a move? Honestly, it’s a little insulting.

Rick sighs and looks down at Daryl with a bemused expression. “What are you doing? Get back into bed.”

Daryl splutters. “You—! You—!”

Rick closes his eyes to keep from rolling them. Yes, he kissed Daryl’s arm. And apparently, the very idea is so ludicrous and unsettling that Daryl can’t even put it to words.

“I’d like to go to bed now, but you’ve taken the covers with you,” Rick says shortly. He pats the bed beside him in an unspoken command and flops back down.

It takes two full minutes for Daryl to pull himself up off the floor. And when he does, he ignores Rick’s (very clear) instructions. Daryl dumps the blankets on the bed and starts gathering up his clothes.

“Gonna keep watch,” he says while pulling on his pants.

Rick doesn’t reply. His bare chest feels oddly exposed now. He pulls the blankets up to his chin. It doesn’t matter though. Daryl’s not looking at him.

The room remains silent except for the quick sounds of Daryl’s movement. Rick doesn’t look, but he listens as Daryl gets dressed and laces up his shoes. Then he grabs his crossbow, his bolts, shimmies the window open, and disappears out onto the rooftop. Which is so entirely predictable that Rick’s irritation claws in deeper. Of course Daryl would go out there. Because now he has to “think”, and Daryl always does his most important thinking on rooftops.

Rick huffs and rolls over. He stares at the wall. It’s plain and empty and boring, and Rick’s grateful for it.

Why does Daryl have to make everything into such a big deal? Why can’t he just let this happen? At this rate, the two of them will never get anywhere. Both interested, both longing, but dancing around one another for the rest of their lives, because for every one step forward Rick takes, Daryl takes two steps back. It isn’t fair. Daryl has rendered him powerless. Rick is incapable of leading them into ‘something more’, because Daryl won’t let him.

No—of course! There’s the solution! Rick can’t lead—Daryl has to. Daryl isn’t going to follow Rick into uncharted territory, but Rick will follow Daryl anywhere. Daryl has to initiate if they have any hope of romantic advancement. That’s it: he has to get Daryl to touch him.

But how? First thing’s first: Rick has to stop touching Daryl entirely. A cease to all physical contact is sure to get Daryl itching. And then… And then Rick will figure it out from there.

Suddenly the plain, empty, boring wall suffocates him. He closes his eyes and thinks of Daryl, sitting on the roof, looking up at the stars, the cool nighttime air painting his cheeks a pretty pink. He thinks about Daryl thinking about him.

***

Their route back to the prison takes them onto a freeway overpass. It’s littered with walkers, and they take out some as they go, looting cars along the way, but most of the walkers aren’t worth their time. They’re sun-cooked and slow. It’s easier to weave around and ignore them in favor of gathering supplies.

They’re halfway through the overpass when a door slammed too hard by Rick sets off the car alarm of another nearby vehicle. Every slimy head cracks around to look at them. Feet start shuffling, and it becomes painfully clear that they’ve got walkers in front of them, walkers behind them, and a dangerous drop on either side. There’s no choice then—they’ll have to pick a direction and mow through the lot, while simultaneously beating off the geeks clawing at their backs.

Daryl slams the car door and sighs. “God fuckin’ damn it,” he says, like he’s too tired to be bothered.

Rick hitches his pack higher on his shoulders and shrugs. There's nothing they can do about it now. He pulls out his machete and starts back the way they came. Their hatchback is parked at the overpass’s entrance, and most of their haul sits tightly-packed in the trunk. It’s better to double back for it for both the supplies and transportation than attempt to press on. It’s already late afternoon and they’re still miles from home. Without the car, they would only get home well past dark and empty-handed.

Daryl hangs back, in the middle of the overpass, taking out walkers with his bow. Meanwhile, Rick slices through the infantry standing between them and the hatchback. As per usual, they have grossly underestimated the number of walkers. The noise of the fighting seems to birth more out of thin air, and it doesn’t matter how fast Rick swings, how many bodies pile up, more appear to take their place. The bow is too slow. Daryl’s going to have to jump in with his own knife soon. Rick turns around to tell him so, but as soon as he does, his heart lodges in his throat.

“Behind you!” Rick cries.

Daryl whirls around, throwing his bow arm wide. Thankfully the blind swing lands, and the _crack_ of impact of the bow’s limb against the walker’s skull is enough to make the thing stagger backwards. Another hard downward swing caves its skull in. Daryl tugs, and tugs harder, but the stock is jammed. He abandons his bow. 

By the time Rick crosses the distance to help him fight off the horde, Daryl has killed two with his hunting knife, and three more are closing in on him with outstretched arms and snapping jaws. Rick falls into place beside Daryl and with some quick swings, takes out two-thirds of the immediate threat. Now that he’s no longer outnumbered, Daryl efficiently takes out the last.

They pause, take a breath, and share a look. It’s one they’ve shared often, especially in moments like this. It’s a mixture of relief, adrenaline, and a twisted sort of humor. That shine in Daryl’s eye… It grounds Rick, every time. It gives him the strength to keep going. There’s no one he’d rather fight beside. There’s no one else who gives him that look.

It only lasts a second or two at most, the briefest of nonverbal exchanges. And just like that, they’re back in the thick of the battle, grunting with each heavy swing or hard stab of their weapons.

They start back to back, but once the forces on the other side of the overpass reach them, they’re surrounded. It doesn’t take long for the walkers to drag them apart from one another, toward opposite sides of the road. Daryl climbs up onto the roof of a sedan and sits on his hands and knees, stabbing walkers in the head as they claw after him, nails scrabbling against the rusted metal.

Rick, on the other hand, does not think of the potential height advantage that climbing atop a car would provide until it’s too late. The horde backs him up against the wall of the freeway overpass. He fights them off as best he can, but they’re overtaking him, and Daryl—Daryl’s too far away, and without his bow, and swarmed himself. Nowhere to run, no help coming, and Rick is tired and outnumbered and all at once, the panic sets in.

“Daryl!” He cries, for lack of anything better to do. He keeps swinging, but when they’re stacked on top of him like this, and with his arm is worn out, each walker takes three or four hacks to fall—and when they do fall, it just adds to the pile of bodies at his feet that the other walkers then climb atop of. A few are towering over him now, and he can’t reach their heads. This is bad. Very, very bad.

“Rick!” Daryl shouts, his voice high-pitched with alarm. “I’m comin’! I’m comin’!”

Through the blockade of swaying bodies, Rick can see Daryl pick up speed. He is trying to cut down a path for himself to cross over the bridge. He’s coming, but he won’t be here soon enough. There’s too much standing between them.

There’s a walker in front of Rick, already six foot by itself, and now it’s standing on a pile of bodies at least three high. Its full set of gnashing teeth strain toward Rick, hoping to sink into the flesh of his cheek.

All Rick can do is keep it at arm’s distance. There are others all around him, clawing at his legs, pulling on his shirt, and snapping their jaws like a chorus of threats. Another one, down low, bites down on his thigh, and though his jeans protect his skin, the feeling of the teeth closing down on him causes Rick to yelp.

“Rick!” Daryl screams in response.

But Rick is scrambling to shake the walker off his leg, and doesn’t know where Daryl’s voice is coming from. He flails and kicks, and he thinks he hears someone screaming, “Shit, shit, shit!” in the distance as another walker’s rotting hand rips his shirt open and presses their heated fingers and overgrown nails against his bare skin. It’s only when the panicked screams turn into, “Oh God, oh Jesus fucking Christ, oh fuck, Daryl! Fucking Christ, _Daryl_!” that he realizes the pitched, broken voice is his own.

“Rick! Rick!” Daryl’s screaming so loud that his voice splinters.

Rick kicks at heads and swings his machete clean through any arms that threaten the fragile expanse of his exposed stomach. He tries to scramble back, but there’s nowhere to go. He’s sliding up the overpass wall at his back, climbing atop bodies as best he can to keep the horde from overtaking him from above. But the tall walker still has his height advantage, and while Rick’s fighting off the ones down low, it seizes its opportunity and grabs him by the hair.

A series of disjointed shouts escape him on every panicked exhale once Rick realizes his predicament. The thing has its fingers knotted in his curls, and it’s dragging Rick in, pulling his face towards its ravenous mouth. It would almost look like it was guiding him into a kiss, if it wasn’t for the snarling teeth. And the fact that the guy was dead, with grey skin peeling off in gummy clumps.

It leans in, and once it’s close enough to bite down into the hot flesh of his cheek, Rick’s panic response catapults him backwards without any conscious thought on his part.

He goes over the overpass edge.

It’s a few seconds before his brain catches up with what his body elected to do. When Rick comes back into himself, he realizes that he did indeed fall backwards off the overpass—and somehow, managed to grab onto something before he hit the ground. He’s hanging off a structural support bar for the freeway sign built off the overpass. It should be difficult to hold his dangling body’s weight up by his arms alone, but he’s pumped full of adrenaline, his pulse is pounding hard enough to make his ears ring, and he can’t even feel the burn in his arms. What he can feel, however, is the heat of the freeway sign pressed up against the right half of his body. The metal swelters against his skin, and he feels like a slab of meat laid into a heated pan. He cranes his neck down to look at the sign. The classic green color has faded from sun exposure and rust. The letters are peeling off. It’s got gaping holes through the metal that make it unreadable, and a random spattering of bullet holes, the product of a machine gun tearing through it. Somebody must have used it as target practice for their heavy artillery. What a waste of ammo.

“Fuck, Rick?! Rick?!”

The chorus of groaning hasn’t quieted, but Daryl’s voice sounds closer now. He must have slipped through the sea of bodies.

“Down here!” Rick yells back. Immediately, Daryl’s head peeks out over the edge.

“Rick!” His face is smeared with blood, and there’s a gut-wrenching mixture of terror and relief in his eyes at the sight of Rick dangling above the freeway drop. There’s a dead hand clawing at his shoulder, but Daryl doesn’t even seem to notice it.

Rick assesses his options: he looks up, and realizes he can’t climb it on his own. It’s too far; he’d need a rope. Then he looks down, and no, he can’t let go either. It’s too high. He’d break bones, at the very least, and they don’t have the resources to treat that level of injury. He huffs determinedly. “Clear what you can, then help me up,” he yells up to Daryl.

Daryl nods, grabs the hand on his shoulder, and yanks the walker forward and into the blade of his knife. Then he disappears.

Rick flexes his fingers against the metal bar and focuses on his breathing. He’ll need to hang on for a while. He listens to the sounds of Daryl fighting. It sounds brutal, like a full-blown war. But it’s not two armies facing off—it’s just Daryl. Daryl standing against a horde, all on his own.

It goes on long enough that Rick’s adrenaline ebbs, and the tingle of strain begins to creep through his arms. He tenses his fingers around the bar and breathes steadily, focusing all his attention on his muscles, hoping beyond hope that they don’t give out.

After a while, the pressure and weight against his fingers start to make the joints ache. Breathing is more difficult now. Each breath in wavers, and each breath out sounds more like a pained grunt. He’s lost track of how long it’s been—a good while, he knows that much, but the sounds of fighting haven’t slowed in the slightest. He prays that Daryl isn’t hurt. His eyes flutter closed, and he blocks out the pain. He ignores his hands, and his arms, and the tension in his abdomen. He ignores the ache creeping into his injuries from his face off with the horde. He ignores the blistering metal pressed along his leg and bared torso. He pushes it all aside and focuses on the sounds of Daryl’s fight. Behind closed lids, his imagination paints a scene to match footsteps and grunts and quick rustles of movement. He fills his mind with the image of Daryl, fierce, strong, and battle-worn, laying waste to an army of the dead.

Eventually, the car alarm dies suddenly, mid-blare, and relief floods Rick. He hadn't realized the tension it was causing him until he was released from it.  

Daryl reunites with his bow, climbs up onto a car, and starts taking out the last of them. There can’t be many left now—Daryl’s been fighting for a long time, and the cacophony of groans from the dead have died down to a soft whisper.

A click—Daryl loading an arrow into the chamber. Follow by a grunt, and a soft _twang_ as he draws the string back. A _fwip_ through the air as he whips the bow up to his eye to aim. A beat of silence. Then a click, a _whoosh_ , and a wet squelch when the arrow hits home. Rick listens to this process twenty-six times. By the time it’s over, his arms are trembling.

One hundred and thirty four seconds pass. The time is filled with the sound of fast footsteps, car doors, and rustling. Finally, finally, a rope drops over the edge.

“Grab on!” Daryl barks, and Rick hastily complies. He wraps one tender, trembling hand around the rough rope, then the other. As soon as he’s got both hands on it, Daryl tugs with all his might.

Rick shouts out in pain. Daryl yanked hastily, unevenly, and in the process, Rick’s body swung to the side, and back again, directly into the battered edge of the freeway sign. The metal edge hurts all the way down his body where it makes impact, but the worst pain of all comes from the twisted bit of metal sticking straight out. It has pierced through Rick’s jeans and straight into his thigh.

“Shit!” he says, just as Daryl tugs again—with the metal still buried three inches deep in Rick’s muscle. It slices through his quadricep like a knife. “Stop, stop, stop!” he screams. His throat strangles the words. Daryl stops immediately, and the rope slackens. Rick drops a few inches, and the metal slices back through the other way, opening the gash up even further.

He whimpers pitifully. His pants are shredded, his skin is splayed open, and the blood is spreading through the jean fabric at a sickening speed. Daryl looks over the edge, eyebrows knit tight with concern.

“To the left,” Rick says weakly. “Drag me to the left…before you…pull.” Carefully, oh so carefully, he pulls his leg away from the metal. It slips from the destroyed muscle tissue. He drops his head and watches the blood seep through his jeans in an expanding red splotch. His grip tightens on the rope.

It takes a minute for Daryl to shimmy the rope over. As soon as Rick calls, “That’s good,” Daryl starts hauling him up again, so fast that he must be pulling the rope hand-over-hand.

The moment that Rick’s fingers curl around the overpass wall, Daryl’s there, grabbing him by the forearms and dragging him up and over. Rick falls on the other side, hands and knees, breathing heavily, and crawls only so far to ensure that he’s not on top of any dead bodies. He rolls over and collapses onto the warm concrete, eyes closed against the sun.

“Rick...”

Daryl chokes around his name. It’s so thick with emotion that Rick’s eyes flutter back open, surprised. He blinks up at Daryl, who’s trembling all over. His jaw is quivering. His eyes are locked on the wound. Rick follows his gaze and sees the pooling blood. The red has colored his whole thigh now. Yeah, it’s bad. Rick’s head goes spinny just from the sight of it. He’s losing too much blood.

Daryl falls to his knees, which isn’t right at all. They don’t have much time. “What are you doing Daryl?” Rick asks, quiet but sharp. Daryl’s eyes lift, and their gazes lock together. The conversation is so quick, it takes only a fraction of a second.

 _I failed you. I’ve lost you,_ Daryl says.

Rick heart surges. He doesn’t have any words to say, but he responds with emotion: confusion, and denial.

 _I can’t believe I let them get you,_ Daryl says. His eyes flick back down to the wound. _I can’t do this. I can’t lose you. Oh God. I’ve lost you._

“No,” Rick croaks, because it’s too important to not say out loud. “No.”

He tells Daryl silently that he’s got it wrong, that it wasn’t the walkers, that he’s not bit, or scratched, and that there’s still time, if they act fast and smart.

He watches understanding wash Daryl’s grief away like a cold morning shower. He sobers immediately, and falls right back into the stony-faced, man of action Rick has come to know him as. Daryl rips his shirt off and ties it tightly around Rick’s thigh, just above the wound. Rick lets his head fall back, relief overwhelming him as he hands himself over to Daryl’s diligent care. He’ll make it through this. Daryl will ensure it.

Daryl’s up, then back again, and a canteen and a clean cotton dress land beside Rick.

“Wash it, wrap it, I’ll be back,” Daryl says, and then he’s gone, running as fast as he can back toward the hatchback.

Rick groans. It’s a struggle to sit up, and his head whirls enough to make him nauseous, but he follows Daryl’s instructions. He washes his walker-bloodied hands, then he rinses out the wound. He ties the fabric around it and collapses back down.

Daryl’s back a minute later, holding their full med kit and two more canteens of water.

“Stitches,” he says, while he washes the mess from his hands. He digs the hand sanitizer out of Rick’s back pocket (Rick only lies there limp and lets him manhandle his tired body), and applies that, too. It’s hard to keep his eyes open, so Rick doesn’t try. He focuses on the sounds. He focuses on the feel of Daryl’s steady hands on him, untying the wrap, ripping the hole in his jeans wider, and cleaning the wound.

The work is quick, but thorough. Somewhere in his head, distantly, Rick’s aware that it hurts to have Daryl poking around the tender flesh, pouring antiseptic over it, and tugging at it with the tissue forceps to sew it up. There’s nothing to dull the bite and pull of the needle. He’s too far removed from himself to feel it fully, though. Sleep tugs at him. Each lungful of air grows slower and further apart from the last.

“Stay awake,” Daryl says, and it yanks Rick off the precipice of unconsciousness. He jerks and gasps through his nose, and Daryl has to lean his weight against Rick’s leg to keep him from ripping out the untied stitch. “Three down. A ways to go. Stay with me, Grimes. No sleeping.”

Rick blinks up at the sky, and bobs his head. He tries to count how many different shades he can see. The sun’s setting now. There are four different shades of orange, three pink, and the slightest hint of red.

It hurts more when Daryl gets near the center of the wound, because the flesh is further apart and he has to pull harder at it with the forceps. The occasional whimper slips passed Rick’s lips, but if it draws any concern from Daryl, he doesn’t show it. He is the model picture of stoicism.

“Thank you,” Rick whispers. It’s heavy in his chest, because he doesn’t think he’s ever been so grateful for another human being to exist the way they do. Daryl is everything he could want or need in this moment. He wishes he had the energy to tell him so. As it is, Daryl doesn’t even react to the simple ‘thank you’. His task has consumed his attention. Rick wonders if he heard it all, but then he realizes—of course he heard. This is Daryl. Nothing slips by him. Rick closes his eyes again.

Daryl finishes off the stitches. He loosens his shirt on Rick’s upper leg, and tightly rewraps the cotton dress around the wound.

“Awake.” There’s a pill pressed to his lips, and Rick mouths at it until it slips through. He cranes his neck up and accepts the sip from the canteen. “Antibiotic,” Daryl says. Rick swallows it down. Then there’s two more, one after another. “Painkiller.” A few bites of granola bar are fed to him using the same method. Rick sips the water, and when he’s done, his head hits the concrete with a _thunk_.

Rick considers sleep once more, but then Daryl’s hands are tugging at his shirt. Rick blinks awake and sees Daryl hovering above him, eyebrows screwed up tight while he feeds the buttons through the holes of Rick’s shredded flannel.

“Daryl?” Rick murmurs. His dried out throat makes the words scratchy and weak.

“Don’t talk.” Daryl says. The shirt’s last button slips free. Daryl pulls Rick’s arms through the short sleeves, and now… Oh. His chest is laid bare under Daryl’s careful gaze and gentle, dragging fingertips.

Rick’s heart hammers hard in his chest. He opens his mouth to reiterate his question, but Daryl told him not to speak, and his screamed-raw throat hurts enough that he decides to listen. His question delivers itself through eye contact instead. Daryl sees it, but ignores it. He’s busy, raking over Rick’s chest with attentive eyes. They linger especially long on the indentation from his body connecting with the freeway sign, and on each bruise made by insistent walker hands pressing hard against him. He looks over Rick’s arms, and neck. Then, his eyes move downward and examines Rick’s legs with the same careful attention, checking for any tears in the material that would indicate a scratch, or teeth broken through.

Rick should have said something sooner, should have insisted that he was fine, really, no bites, no scratches, no risk of turning. But it’s difficult to protest against Daryl’s soft touches against his bare skin. Instead, he continues to lay there and soak in the bliss it brings, even after Daryl goes through the whole process a second time, using an antiseptic-wetted cloth to wipe down any injuries—a likely useless precaution against any 'unseen' abrasions of the skin.

Once the task is complete, Daryl leaves and returns with a towel. He spreads it out beside Rick and gently—oh, so very gently, and without any meaningful assistance from Rick—he rolls Rick’s body over, and repeats the process on his back. Rick sighs and savors the luxury of Daryl’s hands on him, warm and callous-roughened. They go through all the same motions again, except this time, Daryl, on his knees, scuffles up to Rick’s head and searches there, too. Fingers thread through the strands and part the thick hair, looking for any hidden damage.

“What’s this?” Daryl says, voice high and tight. He presses his fingertips against a tender spot on top of his head. There’s enough congealed blood pooled there that Rick can hear the tackiness of it against Daryl’s skin. He’s pouring a steady stream of antiseptic over it before Rick even parts his lips to answer. He hisses against the burn.

“Walker had m’by the hair,” Rick says into the crook of his arm. “Must’ve ripped it out when I went over.”

Daryl doesn’t speak. Another stream of antiseptic waterfalls over the wound. He works it through the hair around it like it’s shampoo.

“I told you, I’m fine,” Rick says. “Nothin’. I promise. His hold wasn’t anywhere near my scalp. I’d tell you if it were any different.” He pauses. “I’m going to be okay.”

Daryl presses his forehead against Rick’s bare shoulder. The contact is sticky with sweat and blood. Daryl trembles against him—but he’s deadly silent. Not even breathing.

Desperately, Rick wants to flip over. He wants to pull Daryl in against his chest and squeeze him until his lungs can’t hang on to the air they’re holding any longer. But he can’t. He can’t. Daryl won’t let him. So Rick just stays still, head nestled in his arms, and _feels_ —

And then, suddenly, his wide eyes are directed back up at the color-filled sky, and the trembling form has pressed hard up against the full length of his torso. Rick grunts at the tight constriction around his chest. His lungs can’t expand.

“Daryl,” he wheezes. The arms wrapped around him tighten. “Daryl,” he tries again. He swats weakly at Daryl’s bicep.

“I thought that was it, Rick,” Daryl says against his chest. And it’s so high, fragile, and childlike, that the pain around Rick’s ribs suddenly feels like nothing compared to destruction laid upon his heart. He throws his arms around Daryl.

Daryl’s rocking them back and forth, and muttering low, under his breath, “I lost you. I lost you. I lost you,” and Rick whispers back, “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”

They stay that way until the orange, pink, red sky fades into early-evening blue.

 

When they finally peel themselves apart (since neither of them are wearing shirts, separating their tacky torsos from one another could only be described as _peeling_ ), Rick’s spinning head has settled down enough for him to sit up. He accepts the rest of his granola bar from earlier, along with an applesauce cup and a chocolate bar that Rick knows Daryl had tucked away somewhere for himself, because it’s his favorite brand. But Daryl presses it into his hand and says, “Eat it,” with such intensity that Rick doesn’t dare question it. Daryl sits beside him and watches each bite go down. He follows every few by pressing the canteen up to Rick’s lips for another gulp of water. When Rick’s finished, they get him up to his feet, and Daryl guides him around with an arm over his shoulder until he feels steady enough to walk on his own. Each step hurts, and his limp is bad, but he manages it. Barely. He’ll be laid up for a while on this one.

The sky darkens, and it becomes clear that they’re not going any further tonight.

They end up standing side by side, looking out over the overpass. There’s not much to see now that night has crawled in, and apparently, there’s not much to say, since they’ve both been silent for who knows how long.

It’s Daryl that cuts through both the dark and the quiet. He flicks on his lighter and takes a long drag from a cigarette—or so Rick thinks, until he smells it with the first touch of fire to paper. A joint. Daryl takes a long, eager drag before passing it over. Rick eyes it wearily.

Daryl blows the smoke out in a billowing cloud. “Com’on, Sheriff. Man might be walkin’ on until forever, but the laws’re all buried.”

Rick takes the still-smoldering joint. The faint orange glow illuminates the barest outline of his own fingertips, and he can’t help but admire them. They’re there, intact, moving around, pulsing with blood, the same as all the rest of him. He’s breathing. His heart is beating, (loud, in this moment, standing here next to Daryl), and he feels more alive than he ever as before. Gratitude burns through him, and he’s so glad for this moment, so overwhelmingly _happy_ to be here, that suddenly it doesn’t matter what sort of hell the universe put him through to get him here. None of it matters. At least he’s here, now, in this moment. It feels good enough in itself to make up for every bit of bad.

He struggles to stop smiling long enough to close his lips around the tip and pull in a breath of smoke. It tastes like shit, his lungs ache, and it sends him into a coughing fit, but all of that only makes him smile wider. Here he is. Alive. And there is Daryl, standing beside him. Every bit as alive as he is.

Rick takes another, smaller hit and sighs contentedly on the release.

“What?” Daryl asks. He takes the joint back when Rick hands it over. His lips are quirked into a curious smirk when he puts it to his mouth and relights it.

Daryl’s eyes glint prettily in the flame’s light. Rick stares unabashedly. He must be wearing the stupidest grin, but he can’t help it. His soul weighs nothing at all. He’s free.

He stares long enough that Daryl’s cheeks color pink. Daryl doesn’t look away though. So Rick holds him there with his eyes, and tries to communicate the depth of his joy. After a few moments, Daryl laughs out loud and breaks his gaze away.

“Yeah,” he says. It sounds like a single music note, carried off on the wind, and Rick knows that Daryl understood every lick of what Rick’s eyes meant to say. Of course he did. This is Daryl.

Rick stares at Daryl’s fingers while he takes another hit. Rick stares at his own when the joint is passed off to him. He loves Daryl’s hands. He loves his own. He loves that they’re standing together, close enough to wrap their hands together. If they wanted to, they could. The universe has so generously granted them the opportunity. The only thing stopping that warm, dry press of palm-against-palm—that tender act of companionship—is Daryl. Rick smiles fondly at him.

When they’re about halfway through the joint, Rick announces, loud and clear to the cricket-chirping night, “I’d like for you to hold my hand.”

Daryl snorts. He dips his head and shakes it, laughing breathily over the overpass edge. But before he takes another drag of smoke, he drops his hand and winds their fingers together.

Rick squeezes his hand softly. Gratefully.


	5. Chapter 5

Three days after they had arrived back home, Rick hobbles into the prison’s common room on crutches, feeling like a Hershel copycat. He is awkward and uncoordinated, but he’s just happy to finally be up and about again.

Only Daryl is sitting in the common room, which is odd because it’s midmorning, and he’s the last person Rick would expect to see cooped up inside when there’s work to be done out in the yard. But there he is, sitting in the corner of the couch, picking at his nails, and looking incredibly bored.

Yesterday, once they’d returned from their run and Hershel saw the state Rick had gotten himself into, he instructed his girls to bring Rick to the Care Cell for rest and monitoring. He didn’t let Rick out once, insisting that the muscle had suffered severe trauma, shouldn’t be used for a while, and that they needed to keep an eye on it for signs of infection. The Greene family took shifts, making sure Rick’s bandages were kept clean, and that he was eating, drinking, and taking his antibiotics. Rick couldn’t stand the coddling, so the first time Daryl poked his head in to see how he was doing, Rick sat straight up and whispered urgently, “Go out and find me some crutches, will you? I’m losing my mind in here.” The next day he woke up to find a pair propped up against the wall beside him, adjusted to his height and with hand towels tied around the arm rests.

Daryl’s eyes leap up at the sound of the crutches’s thunking rubber footsteps. He sits up a little straighter and a tentative smile tugs at his lips. It catapults Rick into a wide grin he couldn’t suppress if he tried.

Daryl’s eyes scan over him. “Good,” he says.

“Yeah,” says Rick. He hobbles across the room, one shaky swing of his body at a time. Last night Maggie wrapped his leg up tight with elastic bandages, so the limb has limited range of movement, and he’s not putting any weight on it, but he is managing to move without falling on his ass. Slow and steady.

Daryl’s eyes linger on the bandage like he wishes he had x-ray vision so he could get a look at the damage.

“Thanks for these,” Rick says. “You’re a lifesaver, yet again. Tryin’ to make a habit of it, are you?”

Daryl’s eyes jump up and widen. His cheeks flush a gentle pink. _The look._ Rick won’t ever grow tired of seeing it.

He stops in front of Daryl. Every part of Rick wants to take the spot beside Daryl, press the sides of their bodies up against one another from shoulder to ankle, maybe even wrap an arm around him again. But he must remember his plan: he is supposed to be pulling back on his romantic advancements.

Rick sits on the other end of the couch, and tosses his injured leg up on the cushion between him, taking care to bend his knee a little so that his socked foot doesn’t come into contact with Daryl’s thigh.

Daryl sinks back into the couch with a small frown.

His eyes flick over Rick, and Rick reads _confusion_ there, but no words, and Daryl displays no indication that he’s going to ask the question rattling around in his head. Instead he says, “Glad to see it’s not givin’ you too much grief.”

Rick smiles, and rubs a careful hand over the bandage. “Naw, it’s doin’ just fine. Healin’ up. No infection. Hershel says you did a beautiful job with the stitches. But I already knew that.”

Daryl’s cheeks flush up again, and he shrugs. “Lotta practice. Can I see it?”

Rick smirks and nods him forward. _Go on then,_ he says.

Daryl reaches toward the bandage, and Rick lifts his leg a bit to give him the room to unwind it. His fingers pause and twitch just before they make contact with Rick’s leg.

 _You sure?_ Daryl asks.

_Go on._

Carefully, he unclasps the metal hooks holding the bandage in place and begins to unwrap it.

The bandage is thick and long, so it takes a while to uncover Rick’s leg. He’s wearing the same jeans as the day on the overpass because they were already destroyed and Hershel could take the liberty of cutting away the fabric surrounding the wound for easy access.

Daryl stares at the neat line of stitches—twenty-two in all—with a beetled brow. His fingers tremble above it, like he can barely resist the urge to reach out and touch. Rick pulls his hand sanitizer out of his back pocket and motions for Daryl to give his hands over. Into Daryl’s waiting palm he squeezes out a dollop, and Daryl rubs the strong, hospital-smelling liquid into his hands. Once it’s all worked in, he traces the line of black thread stitches with a single fingertip.

The touch rises gooseflesh over Rick’s entire body.

“Gonna scar ugly,” Daryl murmurs. He sounds sad.

“Good.”

Daryl gives him a questioning look.

“It deserves an ugly scar. Fuckin’ hurt.”

The confusion on Daryl’s face only deepens.

“A scar isn’t anything but evidence that you made it through some sorta hell. Yeah, my leg got torn up, but I made it through. All my scars, all over my body, they’re nothin’ but a list of trials I’m stronger than.”

For the first time ever, Daryl’s eyes are completely unreadable to Rick. Daryl says nothing, and so Rick presses on.

“Y’know, every time I look at it, it’s gon remind me of you. How you came through for me that day. I made it through this time ‘cause I had you lookin’ out for me. This scar…” Rick rubs a thumb over the bruise-yellowed skin and smiles at it fondly. “It’s gon be a reminder of how much you care about me.”

When Rick looks up, Daryl’s eyes are waiting for him, and the look in them knocks the air right out of Rick’s lungs. It’s passion, and desire, and…and love. Overwhelming, all-encompassing, breath-stealing _love_ , and Rick’s reading it in Daryl’s eyes just as clearly as if he said the words out loud.

_I love you. I love you so much it hurts._

And for a moment, Rick’s convinced that this is it—that finally, Daryl’s going to crawl over the top of Rick, and press their lips together in a sickly-sweet, love-laden kiss. He’s convinced, because he’s thinking it, and Daryl’s thinking it, and there’s a deep, vibrating energy humming between them insistently, and it feels like the whole world is dragging them together, like magnets of opposite charges. Rick resists the pull, stays stone still, and waits for Daryl to cave under the pressure of it and come hurtling toward him.

But Daryl growls and tears his eyes away. Yanks his hand off of Rick’s tender, sewn up skin. He stands up and walks off.

Rick blinks through the haze of disorientation and watches Daryl’s back as he saunters away and out the metal doors. He jerks the handle, and sunlight pours into the dim room. Then he disappears, the door slams closed with a heavy metal _clunk,_ and he has taken the sunlight with him, leaving Rick alone on the common room’s couch, feeling lost and alone.

***

Rick’s waiting outside, crutch free, with Carol and Carl when the run group pulls through the prison fence and reverses up to the main doors. He’s standing without any weight on his injured leg, and he can’t get anywhere quickly with how bad his limp is, but he’s determined to get back on his own two feet as soon as possible, and that means tottering around without them as much as he can tolerate. Plus, he can’t exactly help unload anything if he’s got his arms occupied.

Glenn and Maggie climb out of the car, and are greeted with warm hugs from the others. Daryl pops the trunk and climbs out of the driver’s side. Immediately, Rick feels Daryl’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t pay him any mind. He’s busy limping toward Maggie with a wide smile and outstretched arms. He hugs her tight, and whispers his congratulations on their successful trip and safe return home.

Carl has wrapped his arms around Daryl’s middle, and Carol’s pressing a kiss to his sweaty, hair-plastered temple. But Daryl’s eyes are on Rick, dark, and heavy with something untranslatable. It’s so intense that it traps Rick, and he doesn’t realize how long he’s been hugging Maggie until Glenn claps a hand on his shoulder and draws him back into reality. Rick smiles at him, hugs him just as tight, and gives him the same muted speech about how happy he is for their return. He does not look at Daryl, even though he can feel Daryl’s eyes lingering on him still.

Two awkward days have passed, and Daryl has been huffier than usual, barely talking to anybody, stomping all over the place, and largely avoiding Rick’s gaze. It was baffling at first, but as time went on, and Daryl’s behavior became increasingly agitated, Rick’s confusion fell away and a delighted sort of amusement took its place. Rick knows that Daryl wants him. He knows that Daryl feels the tension rumbling just under the surface of their every interaction, too. He’s probably confused why things haven’t progressed at all since that day they held hands on the overpass. He probably has no idea that all the control lies with him. Rick’s ready to give up every part of himself—if Daryl would only suck it up and be brave about it for once. It’s his for the taking. Just waiting there, right in front of him, and yet…he won’t _take_.

It’s hilarious.

Daryl’s working himself up into a tizzy over this, and completely unnecessarily. It’s fine. He can keep working himself up. Eventually, he’ll figure it out, and Rick’s willing to wait until then.

He has been waiting. Quite patiently. It’s been torture to keep his hands off of Daryl, but Daryl hasn’t given in at all—so their physical contact is down to almost nothing. All they have are accidental bumps of their knees under the dining table, which Daryl quickly pulls back from and Rick doesn’t chase. Brief brushes of fingertips as they pass things off between them—but those touches never linger. One time, Daryl stopped Rick to pluck a thistledown fairy from his hair and release it back onto the wind with a smirk. It was enough to make Rick’s knees go wobbly, even though the contact was nothing more than a shift in the hair follicles as Daryl’s fingers threaded through to grab the ball of fluff.

Rick lingers on the heavy promise loaded in each of those moments to give him a reprieve from the constant storm of Daryl’s irritation that follows him around the rest of the time.

When he releases Glenn from the hug, Rick finds Daryl standing next to him, looking anxious and waiting. Rick would normally hug him as well, but that would violate Rick’s new no-initiating rules, so he only smiles and nods at him, then limps over to the car to start unloading with the others, who have already loaded up their arms and started toward the prison.

There is a soft disbelieving scoff behind him, and Rick turns to the source.

Daryl’s expression shows hurt.

Rick blinks in surprise. “What?” he asks.

Daryl’s eyebrows pull tighter, and his frown deepens. He scoffs again, and rolls his eyes. “Nothin’,” he mutters. He stomps forward and shoulders Rick out of the way hard enough to throw his balance. Rick has to grab onto the car to keep from falling. Daryl grabs an armload of stuff and then he’s gone, marching off toward the prison without a backwards glance.

It takes a minute for Rick to shake his head through the cloud of confusion and resume the task at hand.

Between all of them, it still takes three trips to unload everything. Each time Rick’s eyes catch Daryl’s, he’s gifted with a brief, bitter scowl.

When they’ve got the last of it inside and Rick’s heading back to his cell to retrieve his crutches (his leg muscle is aching now), Daryl follows him. As soon as they’re out of earshot of the others, and Daryl grabs him by the shoulder and jerks him around. Rick gasps and stumbles, having to put more weight than he would otherwise on his leg to keep from falling.

“What, Daryl?” he asks shortly. The pain has spiked his aggravation.

“Are you fuckin’ mad at me or somethin’? What the hell’d I do?”

“What are you talking about? Course I’m not mad.”

“What the hell was that back there then? Blowin’ me off like that, for no reason? Right. Sure.”

Oh. Oh! Rick is caught halfway between exasperation and gaiety. This is about the _hug_. Daryl’s upset because Rick didn’t hug him. Of all things, for that to be what sends his irritation into a fit of rage…! Humor wins out, and a slow smile creeps across Rick’s face. It only makes Daryl bristle up more.

“How’d I blow you off?” Rick asks, laughter threatening to break free.

“You know how!” Daryl barks, and he looks positively fuming. A clipped giggle slips past Rick’s defenses.

“Tell me anyway,” Rick says.

“You’re out there hangin’ off of Glenn, n Maggie, and then with me you just… Hell, it’s been goin’ on for days! You treat me like I got the fuckin’ plague. Like you can’t stand to lay a finger on me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You’re not exactly _subtle_.” Daryl nearly spits the last word. Then he scoffs, turns, and stomps away before Rick has a chance to respond. Rick starts up after him.

“Daryl, wait. Daryl.”

Daryl doesn’t wait, and he’s losing Rick fast. An advantage of having two functioning legs: quick getaways.

“C’mon, man, don’t make me chase after you with my bum leg.”

Daryl’s feet stop, but doesn’t turn around. His fists are clenched tight at his sides, and his shoulders are drawn up by his ears. Rick laughs, short and pained.

“Daryl… If you want to hug me, then _hug me_.”

The corridor is quiet for a long moment, and Rick waits for Daryl to follow through. All he has to do is turn, take a few sure strides, and wrap his arms around Rick. They’ve done it a dozen times before. It’s nothing new. Hell, Daryl hugged him tight enough to crush the air of his lungs just a few days ago, up on that overpass. This isn’t any different than that. Only a change of setting. Rick wants Daryl to take that step. Needs him to. If Daryl will just do it, Rick will hug him back with every bit of strength in his body, and Daryl will know. He’ll know that the feeling’s mutual, that his advancements will be accepted, that it’s okay for him to push them forward into something new. It’ll trigger a chain reaction, a series of falling dominoes that won’t cease until they’ve given themselves over to one another in every possible way.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Daryl says.

He walks off.

***

Rick sits in the muddy grass beside the garden, his bandaged leg outstretched, watching as Carl and Daryl rip up long carrots from the ground. Two and a half weeks have passed since the initial injury, and his leg has almost healed now (he can go without the crutches so long as he doesn’t overexert himself), and he’s even started up his regular work again. But Daryl has been keeping a constant watchful eye on him. He manages to show up right when Rick’s leg starts bothering him, and offers to step in so Rick can rest and take the weight off it for a while. Rick always accepts his offers with a wide smile. Then he sits back and luxuriates in the opportunity to watch Daryl sweat and flex.

That’s not to say that things have been getting any better between them. Daryl’s offers of help seem to arise from a place of begrudging duty. Rick gets the sense that he’d really rather not, but simply can’t help running to Rick’s rescue when he catches sight of that first wince of pain.

Otherwise, Daryl has become truly terrible company. Just being within spitting distance of Rick seems to rub him wrong these days. His bad temper has been steadily increasing, and now, he’s snappish almost constantly. The only exception to this trend in behavior is moments like this, when he’s helping, as if he’s worried that a bad temper will result in Rick misinterpreting it as his reluctance, and shoo Daryl away before his leg has rested up enough. So that’s another reason Rick savors Daryl’s offers to help: because it means that, for a while, he’ll act civil with him.

“Wash one off for me, would ya Buttercup?”

Daryl whips his head up from his working hands and flushes scarlet. Carl’s eyes jump between Rick and Daryl, one brow quirked, but the oddity doesn’t hold his interest long. He goes back to harvesting without a comment on the nickname.

Honestly, Rick expected it to pull a protest out of Daryl, but instead he receives Daryl’s hasty compliance. He picks out a carrot and washes it with water from his canteen. Once the dirt has all been scrubbed away with his calloused palms, he stands and walks it over. Rick accepts it with a grateful smile.

“Perfect. Thank you.”

He snaps off the tip, about a third of the carrot’s length, and pops it in his mouth, swallowing it down after a few quick crunches. “Hm. They turned out good,” he says cheerfully. Then he latches onto the side of the carrot with his lips and drags down it’s length, gnawing lightly at it along the way, appreciating it’s earthy flavor. When his eyes flick up to Daryl standing over him, he sees Daryl’s flushed cheeks, lidded eyes, and blown pupils. There’s a message for him written there.

_Delicious._

Somehow, Rick doesn’t think Daryl means the carrot. He grins wickedly. His lips close around the carrot’s blunted tip.

Daryl’s eyebrows hit his hairline, and just like that, he’s scrambling backward, and turning his attention back toward carrot plucking. Rick doesn’t even try to hide his amusement.

“Carl,” Rick says, “why don’t you take a break. Go get some lunch. I’m just ‘bout ready to start again. Daryl and I can finish this up.”

Carl departs with his thanks, and Rick clambers to his feet to take his place in the field. He sits criss cross in the dirt, directly across from Daryl, only a few rows of leafy green carrot stems between them. Daryl glances up at him nervously, but Rick just grins around the carrot held between his teeth and gets to work.

If Daryl sneaks glances at him all through the next hour, well that’s just fine. And if every now and then, Rick needs both hands to pull or sort or dig, and he has to hold his carrot with his mouth alone, well…they’ll call that a happy necessity.

By the time they’re finished picking, Daryl has eye fucked him halfway to his own death and Rick is as hard as a carrot.

It’s so fucking ridiculous, he can barely repress his laughter. When Daryl, looking awkward, flushed, and twitchy, has to stand to haul his buckets of harvest over to the kitchens, and Rick sees that he’s every bit as hard a goddamn carrot too, all he can do is hold his breath until Daryl’s out of earshot. Once he’s staggered far enough away, Rick falls forward, burying his forehead in the soft, upturned soil, and trembles with barely-subdued laughter until his eyes water and his erection flags.

***

“No, that’s not quite it,” Rick says. He shifts his shoulders and stretches his neck to the side. The muscle ache is deep, and Carol’s gentle touch isn’t getting to it, despite her best efforts. “Maybe get your elbow in there? Right here.” He gestures, and Carol buries her elbow into the spot on the left trapezius, leans her weight into it, and makes small, rolling circles. Just as Rick groans his approval, Daryl strides out into the prison yard with a clatter and a scowl.

Immediately, his eyes fall on Rick and Carol and his scowl deepens into something downright murderous. It sends a satisfied thrill ricocheting through Rick’s insides. At one time, he would have assumed that look of seething jealousy was directed at Rick, for being the one under Carol’s careful touch instead of Daryl. But now that he knows it’s really Carol’s place Daryl wants to occupy, a warm glow of pride steals over Rick.

Daryl walks, eyes straight ahead, on a mission for the prison fence. He looks ready to mow through every geek clawing at the front lines and then some.

“Daryl!” Rick says. “Help me out, would ya? Carol’s trying to get this knot out of my shoulder and—”

“No,” he says as he blows by them.

“I could use your strong hands. The knot, it’s in there real deep and—”

“No!”

He doesn’t stop, slow, or even glance back.

Rick sighs once he’s out of earshot.

“What’s up with him?” Carol asks.

“Stick up his ass,” Rick says. _Or lack of one,_ he thinks bitterly.

***

The counsel meeting ends and they all file out of the conference room. Rick and Daryl take up the rear of the line as bodies shuffle through the doorway and into the narrow hall.

It seems like Daryl is in a rush to get out after the long, dull meeting which he contributed nothing to, because about ten minutes in, Rick realized that Daryl is physically incapable of keeping his fingers still if Rick’s looking at them, and Rick, therefore, couldn’t drag his eyes away. It seemed to bother Daryl a whole lot. He tapped, twitched, picked at his nails, and every so often, he got fed up and shoved them under the table, out of view. But if Rick kept staring at the spot in front of Daryl’s chest where the hands last were, after a few minutes of Daryl’s full body bouncing from a restless leg, they would reappear and start the same awkward dance over again.

By the time Hershel called the meeting’s end, Daryl looked like he was bursting out of his skin with the need to escape. He stood fast, his chair scraping against the concrete floor, but since he was on the far side of the table, he still made it to the door last. Rick fell into place in front of him, and now, he’s going out of his way to drag his feet a bit—just to annoy Daryl.

It’s working brilliantly. For every slow step, Daryl is riding Rick’s ass (just not the way Rick would like him to). Which gives Rick an even more brilliant idea. He grins, stops suddenly, and bends over. Daryl walks right into him with a surprised grunt. There’s enough force behind the impact to make Rick stumble forward. Rick pops back up and puts on a look of mock-indignation.

“Daryl, you rammed right into me!”

 _The look_ burns it’s way through Daryl’s features. There’s an aggrieved heat underpinning it at all times now. Even when he’s thoroughly flustered, Daryl still manages to hang on to a hint of his now constant irritation.

“What the hell you stoppin’ for? Just keep on movin’! That was all you.”

Rick just shrugs and smiles innocently. “Thought I saw a quarter. Trick of the light, I guess.” Then, he turns and walks onward. But Daryl’s not riding his ass anymore. In fact, he can’t hear Daryl’s footsteps at all. Rick rounds the corner and strides into the common room before he hears Daryl’s voice call after him.

“What the fuck would you need a quarter for?”

***

In the early morning, Daryl’s outline appears on the other side of the thin curtain, and taps his knuckles on the bars of Rick’s cell.

In a hushed tone, he says, “It’s me. Y’awake?”

“Yeah,” Rick replies, and Daryl pulls the curtain back and steps through into the darkened room. He’s got a tinfoil-wrapped bowl in his hands.

He blinks at Rick as his eyes adjust to the light. Rick is sitting on the edge of his bed in nothing but a button up and his boxer briefs. His leg is still wrapped up tight from last night, when Hershel had changed the bandage for him.

“Didn’t know if you was awake. It’s still real early,” Daryl says. “Ham n potatoes.” He waves the bowl. “Thought I’d drop it off for ya, so it’d be sittin’ there beside ya when ya got up.”

Rick beams at him. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

Daryl’s lips tug up into a smile, he ducks his head, and nods bashfully. He holds the bowl out, and Rick takes it from him and slides it onto his bedside table.

“I was just ‘bout to take the bandage off. Hershel gave me the go-ahead. Skin’s all healed up. No infection risk anymore.”

Daryl nods, his eyes on his boots.

“Wanna do the honors?” Rick says. “Y’know, since you’re the one that patched me up n all.”

Daryl crosses the room and drops to his knees in front of Rick without hesitation. It’s so forthright that it threatens a surprised gasp out of Rick, which he quickly gulps down for fear of scaring Daryl off.

Daryl’s fingers deftly undo the metal clasps. Then he’s pulling Rick forward by the knee, guiding his thigh off the edge of the bed so he can unwrap the bandage, unimpeded by the mattress.

Rick doesn’t breathe. He just watches Daryl’s careful fingertips drag down the curves of his wrapped thigh. He gathers up the start of the bandage in his fist and starts slipping the rest away from the leg. Neither of his hands ever break contact with Rick’s body. Somehow, he works the bandage off—coil after coil—with his palm, or his fingers, or the barest press of a thumb, always there, grounding Rick through the process.

He works slowly, but it’s still over too soon. The tail of the bandage falls off his leg into a curl on the floor.

There’s the scar. Long, white, and nasty. It looks every bit as brutish and scragged as the twisted piece of metal that carved it into his skin.

Daryl presses his warm, dry palms on either side of it, flat against the sweat-clammy skin of Rick’s thigh. He’s staring at it so intensely, Rick worries the skin won’t hold. It feels as if the wound might peel itself open and bleed anew just so it can have Daryl sew it back up again.

He leans forward to examine it in the low light. His face is so close. Rick can feel his breath against his prickling skin. Daryl’s dragging his fingertips over the thick white line, and he’s staring at it like it’s the only thing in the whole world. He leans in even closer. His nose brushes the curls of leg hair.

 _He’s going to kiss it_ , Rick thinks, and desire floods his senses. _Oh, God. Please._

“Daryl,” Rick says. It sounds high and strained, tinged with a slight bit of panic from the intensity of his need. _Please,_ he means to say, _do it, please._

But Daryl pulls back like Rick’s skin has burst into flame. His eyes dart up, and they’re huge and terrified. He scrambles backwards, then onto his feet.

“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t mean to. I—I’m sorry,” and then he’s gone, the curtain flapping in his wake.

Rick stares after him, mouth hanging.

After a few long minutes spent lost in utter confusion, Rick collapses face-first onto his bed. He buries himself in his pillow and screams.

***

Outside, evening is just starting to overtake the pretty, blue-skied afternoon. Almost everyone has migrated inside to clean themselves up and help with dinner preparations.

Rick is standing in the bustling kitchen, little Judy balanced on his cocked hip, talking to Maggie and Beth while they slice up produce from the garden. What first started as a conversation about Judy’s day turned into a campfire story about the horrors of children’s preteen years, and then shifted again into a debate about what sort of person Judy’s going to grow up to be. They’re all in good humor from the lighthearted squabble which is full of grandiose theories of varying likelihood, and hypotheses about whether or not Judy’s intermittent giggles are her agreement on the person’s point, or her simple appreciation of their wild gestures and animated voices. Rick is halfway through explaining why Judy will most definitely go through a “preppy” phase (she is Lori’s daughter, after all), when Daryl walks in through the double doors and cuts off his words mid-sentence.

Daryl is…absolutely breathtaking. Rick has seen him like this hundreds of times before: coming in after a long day’s work, bloodied and filthy, hair ragged, looking bone-tired. It’s nothing new, and yet it is, because the white light of the low moon floods in behind Daryl and gives him the perfect backlighting. It silhouettes his dark form and makes him look fucking _fake_ with how perfect he is. He belongs in some sort of action movie, not real life. He’s bloodied, filthy, ragged, tired, and…strong. The very picture of power, like a man coming home from war. Rick is reminded of that day on the overpass, where Daryl cut through a whole horde on his own. For Rick. To protect him.

Suddenly, Rick can’t breathe with such an immense stretch of space between them. He wants to run to Daryl, drag him into his arms, and kiss him hard. He needs their bodies pressed against one another, his hands tangled in that stupid, overgrown mess of hair, and his lips crushing Daryl’s. He needs it so badly that his body is trembling all over with the building energy, barely held at bay by his decimated willpower. Fuck these rules. Fuck this dance! Rick wants it _now_ ; no more waiting. His lungs will collapse if he as to wait one more moment in this abysmal limbo.

Rick doesn’t realize his eyes have communicated every bit of his desire to Daryl until he sees the same sentiment mirrored back at him. His heart crashes like a cymbal to a resounding halt.

The air has sucked itself out of the room, sound has died, and everyone else has faded away. It’s just them. Him and Daryl. Locked into one another. Drowning in shared understanding and endless, endless seas of want.

“Rick and I are gonna check the traps,” Daryl says, and the clamor of the room comes roaring back to life in Rick’s ears.

He swallows, once, and then again, before he dares attempt words. He looks down at little Judy in his arms, and then at Maggie and Beth, both of whom are staring at him with deeply furrowed brows. “Yeah,” he says weakly, and hands his daughter over to Beth, who scrambles to drop the potato and peeler she’s holding so that she can accept the transfer.

“Little late, don’t ya think?” Maggie asks. “Dark out.”

“Problem with one. Can’t wait,” Daryl says.

Rick chuckles nervously and shrugs. He backs slowly toward the exit. “Yeah, what—what he said. He’s been asking me all day, and I just…well, I gotta go help him. Y’know. Fix the…problem.” He slips outside, and Daryl follows him.

The door slams shut behind them, and swallows the lively ruckus of their family. Out in the moonlit yard, the only sound is the soft hum of crickets and two sets of boots striding across the blacktop toward the prison fence.

Rick leads the way, Daryl a few steps behind him, yet it feels more like he’s a sheep being herded by the shepherd. He’s not guiding any part of this journey—he’s only walking the direction Daryl wants him to. Rick doesn’t mind. He’ll follow Daryl anywhere.

He fumbles through the gate locks. Once they’re on the other side, Daryl waits beside him while Rick locks it back up. Rick doesn’t dare look at him. Just his presence is enough to compact his chest with pressure. The weight of eye contact would crush him into God knows what.

Once they’re on the other side of the fence, they walk for fifteen minutes, until they’re up and over the hill. They’ve entered into a dense patch of trees and the prison has just disappeared from view when Daryl’s crunching footsteps stop. Rick’s do the same, but he doesn’t turn around.

It’s silent for a while. Rick is breathing hard. It rattles loudly in the otherwise quiet night, but the thunderous applause of his own heartbeat stands to contest it in terms of amplitude. He doesn’t know if the gooseflesh over his whole body has risen in response to the cold bite of the early-evening air, or because of his own singing anticipation for whatever comes next.

Daryl takes one step forward. The leaves crackle, and a twig snaps, and his clothes rustle. He’s not even trying to be quiet. Daryl knows how to tread light, but he’s choosing not to, because…because he wants Rick to hear his approach.

Rick’s heart rate climbs higher.

Daryl steps again. Rick can hear the shift of fabric when his leg moves. He can hear when his heel first makes contact with the dry forest floor. Can hear when his foot flattens out, and when he shifts his weight onto it fully. The slowest step that man has ever taken. It must take a century to complete. But once he finishes it, Daryl starts the next, and the one after, and suddenly, too soon, he’s just a breath away from Rick’s back. He’s so close, so, so close, but not touching. Everything but.

Daryl shifts, and then his breath is ghosting over the rim of Rick’s ear on every slow exhale. He says, softly, barely a whisper, voice dripping with danger, “Do you _want_ me to destroy you?”

A shudder rolls through Rick’s body. Oh God, please, dear Lord in heaven, yes, yes, _yes_ …

The word tumbles out of him. There was never any hope of containing it. Not anymore.

“Yes.”


	6. Chapter 6

Rick is whirled around and shoved hard against a wide-trunked tree before he has time to process that Daryl has moved at all. Despite his thick cotton flannel, the bark chews at the skin of his back. Daryl’s forearm, pressed against his chest, pins him in place. He is pushing Rick against the tree so hard that Rick’s lungs can’t expand. It’s painful, and overwhelming, and not at all what Rick had imagined when he followed Daryl out here. His dick is hardening.

“This what you want?” Daryl growls. His mouth is so close to Rick’s that if Rick leans in, he could capture those thin, scowling lips with his own. Too bad Daryl has rendered him completely incapable of any forward movement.

Rick is grinning, then giggling, and Daryl presses against him even harder. His arm slides up against Rick’s throat, and the pressure against the windpipe pulls a startled gasp out of Rick—but he laughs through it regardless.

“Think this is some sort of fuckin’ joke?” Daryl snarls. “You’re always fuckin’ laughin’, Grimes. It ain’t funny.”

Between the laughter and restricted air flow, Rick is gasping for air, and mercifully, Daryl lets up off his neck. He buries an angry fist in Rick’s hair and holds him against the tree that way, neck craned back. Rick knows he should stop laughing, or at least suppress the wild grin that is taking up half his face. He must look like a goddamn maniac to be so pleased by this bodily assault. But he doesn’t care. Not in the slightest. Daryl is touching him, his own cock is hard enough to hurt, and he’s _won_. Rick can’t stop laughing because everything about this moment has sent him into a bizarre euphoria. Daryl has finally cracked under the mounting tension. The domino has fallen.

“I don’t know what sort of game you’re playin’. What do you want, Rick? What the fuck do you want from me?”

“This,” Rick gasps between bouts of giggles.

The hand tugs tighter. “You want me to kick your ass?”

“Want your hands on me,” he says, breathless. “Whatever way you want.”

He says that, but really, he wants Daryl’s hands on him in a very particular sort of way, and his impatience means he’s more than willing to encourage things along with whatever resources he has at his disposal.

So, Rick fists his hands in the front of Daryl’s shirt. Then he cants his hips forward and drags his pelvis against Daryl’s. It’s an unmistakably sexual move—and that’s before you factor in the fact that Rick’s tenting in his jeans.

Daryl’s tugging hand slackens. Shock. Confusion. “What?” he asks.

“Touch me. It’s all I want. Just touch me.” He rolls his hips again. He arches his back and groans at the feeling of Daryl's firm body against his cock.

“You’re not fucking with me?” Daryl’s voice has turned soft and fragile. It makes Rick’s heart ache, but his cock aches more, and he can’t stop his rolling hips now that they’ve picked up a steady rhythm. Especially now that he feels Daryl’s cock stiffening up in response. At least his body has finally received the message, even if his head hasn’t.

“I want you,” Rick says.

“But—”

“You saw. In there, just now. You saw it in my eyes.”

“But you—”

“Eyes don’t lie, Daryl, y’know they don’t.”

Rick sags heavily against the tree, scrabbling with his feet and hands to keep himself from sliding right down onto his ass on the forest floor. It takes him a moment to realize that his sudden lack of stability is because Daryl has released his hair and stepped back. Like the loss of contact flipped a switch, euphoria turns into fear. Rick’s head droops and he whines softly at the base of his throat.

“Rick…” Daryl says.

Rick’s body is trembling. Panic is sending his heart running, dread is settling in his bones, and suffocating disappointment is stuffing his lungs full of dried up, pricking pine needles. “Don’t stop now,” Rick says. “Please… Don’t leave it like this.” He sounds pitiful, and he hates himself for it. He shouldn’t beg, but he’s past the point of maintaining his ego.

Then gentle hands are cupping Rick’s face.

They turn every wrong into its beautiful, love-suffused counterpart. Those warm palms against his cheeks…

They send his heart into a raucous victory march. The weight in his bones comforts him: they’re keeping him tied to this world, this moment. He still can’t breathe, but instead of pine needles, his lungs feel light and empty.

 _Daryl,_ is all Rick thinks, and it’s the only thought he needs.

Those gentle hands tip his face upward and guide him into the warm embrace of Daryl’s eyes. Those beautiful, narrowed blue eyes that Rick has so long adored, flick back and forth. They’re looking for signs of deceit, but Rick stares right back into them, fearless. He’ll let Daryl see it all, every last bit of him. He has nothing to hide.

The anger, confusion, and disbelief in Daryl falls away. His bitter aura softens, then disappears, and awe steps up to take its place. Daryl looks at Rick like he can’t quite believe he exists. As if he’s too perfect for such a world as this.

“I’m in love with you,” Daryl says, barely a whisper.

Rick’s heart lodges itself in his throat, and he’s certain it will burst from his body. The unrelenting pound of it in his head deafens him. “I love you, too. God, I do. So much.”

Daryl barks out a laugh. It’s a broken sound, and his eyes are shiny with emotion. “I thought—I thought you were getting yer kicks. I thought ya figured out how I felt ‘bout you and were playin’ some sort of game. Seein’ how much you could work me up.”

Rick’s face heats. “Well… I did. And I was.”

“You were trying to drive me up the wall?”

“If that’s what it takes to convince you to put your hands on me. You stopped touching me, Daryl. And every time I tried to touch you, you’d pull back on me. I couldn’t stand it. I need…” Rick swallows thickly. “I need contact.”

It’s quiet for a moment. Eyes locked on eyes, but this time, there’s nothing being said. It’s shocked silent. Empty. Paused.

Daryl leans in and presses his lips lightly over the top of Rick’s.

The stifled groan that reverberates through Rick sounds pained enough that one might think he’d been punched in the gut, not kissed so soft and tender that it’s almost not a kiss at all.

It’s a gentle brush of lips over lips, ghosting, barely there, but goddamnit, it’s _there_. Daryl’s lips are against his, moving slowly, pressing a bit firmer with each passing second, encouraged by Rick’s continuous, desperate, low-throat whine and the hands flexing in the soft fabric of Daryl’s threadbare shirt.

Every part of Rick’s body demands he pull Daryl in, hold him tight, and turn the kiss into something frantic and filthy. He’s been waiting so long, _so goddamn long_ , and now that he’s finally receiving the contact he’s been waiting for, he doesn’t understand how Daryl is managing to keep them paced this slow. If Rick were in control, by now they’d both be halfway falling out of their clothes, rutting, panting, on the edge of orgasm.

But he’s not in control. He’s following Daryl’s lead, and if Daryl wants to kiss Rick slow, then Rick will kiss Daryl slow right back.

Daryl pulls Rick’s lower lip into his mouth, and the suction is serene. His teeth graze so unbearably light over the sensitive flesh, and it sends shivers all down Rick’s body. He mirrors the action, down to the exact pressure, on Daryl’s bottom lip, and it earns him a helpless whimper and an almost imperceptible twitch in Daryl’s hips.

God—taking it slow like this is every bit as difficult for Daryl. He’s barely hanging on to this poised restraint. But he is—he’s holding on. The hands on Rick’s face inch backwards, gliding over his heated ears, and they thread themselves into the curls of hair.

Rick presses his palms flat against Daryl’s stomach. He moans, but because Daryl is busying his mouth, the sound is only free to escape as a heavy exhale out of his nose and a rumble in his throat.

Daryl slips tentatively past Rick’s lips, and that first warm, wet brush of tongue against tongue makes his knees quiver. This kiss, it’s…

It’s understatement. It’s nuance. The patience to savor this moment—this first kiss—it’s the beauty of discipline.

Yes, they could paw at each other like animals, and that’s what Rick had expected after such a long wait. But instead, they’ve chosen this. Delayed gratification. It’s so wholly _human_. It takes maturity, intellect, and self control. It’s glorious; so glorious that satisfied tingles trickle down Rick’s scalp, like the drag of feather-soft fingertips. It sets every nerve in his whole body alight with sensation. He prays that when he lays dying, his final thought will be of this moment—the memory of how it feels to be cherished by Daryl.

His head dips, spins, and Rick has to pull away with a gasp and suck a fresh breath of air in lungs to combat his lightheadedness. His gaze finds Daryl’s immediately. The look they exchange is simple, affectionate. Like two pinky fingers twining together in promise.

“I love you,” Rick whispers, because he feels it so thoroughly that he’s buzzing with it, because it’s a sentiment that grows steadier with repetition. Daryl deserves the words said steadily. Every time Rick gives voice to the feeling filling up his chest, he wants Daryl to hear that they are Rick’s favorite words in all the world.

Daryl kisses him again, and this time it isn’t gentle.

He pulls Rick in fast by the back of the neck, leans in himself, and then their lips are crushed together, unable to move under the pressure. Rick sucks in a hard breath through his nose and presses back into it. He drags Daryl in by the hips until their bodies are flush against one another, and that’s when the last of Daryl’s willpower crumbles away into dust. A moan rumbles through his chest, and his hands frantically tangle up in the buckle on Rick’s belt.

The sudden shift in direction sets Rick aflame with desire, and before he’s even had time for conscious thought, his hands are on Daryl’s belt buckle, too. Daryl pulls off his mouth with a gasp. The sounds of clinking metal bounce off the trees surrounding them.

“How you want it?” Daryl asks, in a frantic tone. He doesn’t wait for an answer. He opens up the button and fly before Rick manages to undo Daryl’s.

And then, no patience for pause, Daryl’s hand dips between the V of metal teeth and cups Rick’s cock.

Rick moans and drops his head onto Daryl’s shoulder. His hands have flown up to clutch at Daryl’s arms. The task of opening Daryl’s pants up shifts to the back of his mind once the hand starts moving. The firm drag of Daryl’s palm over Rick’s underwear-clad length feels overwhelmingly good. His brain shuts down entirely for a moment. The hand keeps moving, solid and sure, and it takes five passes, up and down, and Daryl’s fingers dipping even lower to curl over his balls before Rick’s brain flickers back to life. His first thought: _Daryl is touching me._ His second?

_Daryl is touching me where he has never touched me before. I have never felt his hands on me like this._

A moan crawls up his throat and his fingers dig into the flesh on Daryl’s arms. “Like this,” he gasps. “Like this. Your hands. God. Please.”

And then his head is tipping back, and a hand is guiding him forward by the back of the neck, and his lips are captured again. It’s messy, this time. It feels like everything is spilling out through the melding of their mouths, the drag, suck, nip of their lips and tongues and teeth.

Rick slides into the heat of the kiss. It envelops him and the rest of the world falls away. There’s nothing else at all, just this moment with Daryl pressed against him. Daryl’s mouth. Daryl’s hands.

Daryl’s hand slipping past the waistband of Rick’s boxer briefs feels like an, ‘I love you,’ all it’s own. _I want you_ , it says, and _I care about you_ , and _I want to make you feel good_.

_I want to make you come._

All of that, in every possible reiteration, and on top of it all, there’s a hundred more sentiments written between the lines, too. They aren’t really understood so much as _felt_ , in an unconscious, bone-deep sort of way. Rick knows the words to describe those particular sentiments simply don’t exist. He’ll find them nowhere at all but in contact with Daryl.

Daryl’s hand surrounds Rick. It is a blanket of night-cooled flesh draped around Rick’s heat. It sends shivers from his cock up through his whole body, like Daryl’s cold is seeping into him to take root. It’s fine—Rick likes it. Whatever part of Daryl that wants Rick, even the cold, Rick wants back. This is where Daryl belongs. Here: beside Rick, all around Rick, slowly seeping into Rick.

The kiss slows as their attention shifts to the action down below. They end up panting against each other’s mouths, not kissing any longer, but unable to pull their mouths away. Daryl works his hand slowly over the shaft, and it feels so _right_ for them to be like this, that Rick doesn’t know how he survived so many years without Daryl’s hand wrapped around him this way.

“You’re home,” Rick murmurs against Daryl’s lips. He doesn’t realize he’d let it pass his lips until he hears Daryl’s sharp intake of breath. His grip tightens up and picks up its pace.

Daryl whispers back, shyly, almost, “And you are, too.”

“Yes.”

“This is how it’s meant to be?” It lifts at the end like it’s a question, but Rick knows it’s only Daryl’s nerves that pull it in that direction. Daryl knows, in his heart. Of course he does. He feels it, too. But if he needs Rick to say it, he will, gladly. He’ll give Daryl anything he needs.

“Yes. This is how it’s meant to be. You and I.”

Daryl buries his whimper into the crook of Rick’s neck. His moving hand slows, then stops, and his body is trembling like he might fall to pieces, but it doesn’t matter because Rick’s sudden need to reciprocate Daryl’s touch overtakes his every thought, and he’s fumbling with the button on his jeans again. This time he gets the button open, the zipper down, and he pulls Daryl right out of his pants into the cold, nighttime air.

“Fuck,” Daryl whines. He sounds utterly overwhelmed.

“Tell me what you need,” Rick says.

“ _Contact,_ ” he says, and it’s so splintered that without further preamble, Rick spits slick warmth into his palm, wraps his hand around Daryl, and starts pumping with purpose.

The sound of Daryl’s pleasure tumbles out of him on a surprised exhale. He sucks a fresh lungful in through his teeth. He holds it for a long time, probably too long, while Rick’s hand works him over, hard and quick. When Daryl lets the air out of his lungs again, he says, “Oh, God, _yeah_ ,” thick with his sweet southern drawl.  

“Yeah?” Rick asks, flushed with pride. It thrusts him back to those days on the farm, when a hand on Daryl’s shoulder felt like a privilege he didn’t deserve and couldn’t understand, and for a moment, he can’t really believe that Daryl has allowed him this. He is letting Rick touch him in the most intimate of ways. No, no, he’s not _letting_ Rick; Daryl’s _desperate_ for this. He wants Rick in this way. Intimately. No one else has permission to touch Daryl like this. Only Rick. He loves it. It’s too much and not enough, both at once, so he says, “Yeah? Does that feel good, my hand on you?”

Daryl bobs his head into the crook of Rick’s neck. His breath is coming out dangerously fast now, and his thighs and the hands fisted in Rick’s clothes are shaking.

“Tell me,” Rick says. He’s high on endorphins, and has long abandoned any hint of hesitancy he’d held onto past the prison gates. He wants to hear, so he asks, shamelessly.

Daryl’s even worse off than him. He’s so far gone, that the request immediately unearths a part of himself so thoroughly buried, that Rick has never seen it before this moment. Daryl starts _babbling,_ “Yea, yea yer hand, Rick—feels so good—so—so—oh my _God_ , so goddamn good, oh God, oh shit—”

“Are you gonna come, Daryl? Look at your legs shakin’. They’re gon give out on ya.”

“Oh God, yea, Rick, gonna make me—I’m gonna—m’gonna come—yer hand—”

Rick buries his nose into the fine, disheveled hair just in front of Daryl’s ear and breathes in deep. He smells like sweat, forest, and musk-scented shampoo. “I ain’t— _ever_ —gon stop touchin’ you. Want my hands on you—always. Want ‘em everywhere,” Rick says into the echoing cartilage curve of Daryl’s ear.

Daryl buries his fists into Rick’s shirt like he’s holding on for dear life. “ _Fuck_ , I love it. I love you touching me. Since the start.”

“I know. I know. It’s the same for me. I love it, too. Have since the start.”

As if the mention of his own hands reminded him, Daryl takes up Rick’s length again and strokes it at the quick pace that Rick’s set. There are two fast moving hands moving in tandem for a few pumps before they simultaneously arrive at the same conclusion, and Daryl presses forward so their cocks are bumping together at the head.

“Together?” Rick asks.

“Together.”

They rearrange so that their lengths are pressed up against one another, and they each have a hand forming one half of the surrounding circle. Daryl’s fingertips burn hot points of starlight onto the skin of Rick’s skin.

Then Daryl guides their hands up, and down, up and down, and once the pumping starts in earnest, neither of them stand a chance. Not like this, with the two of them working together as a team. They last thirty more seconds like that, pumping, thrusting, panting, before Rick tips over the edge, and Daryl follows right after him. Seconds pass where their stuttering gasps and satisfied groans fill the quiet night around them.

When Rick blinks his eyes open again, he finds himself looking heavenward, with his head tipped back against the tree. He’s panting loudly, but Daryl is leaning heavily against him panting too, so it’s perfect. Rick wraps his arms around Daryl. Daryl wriggles his arms around Rick, between his back and the tree. The bark must be cutting up the backs of Daryl’s hands, but he doesn’t complain.

Instead he says, “I love you,” and Rick has the feeling it’s not said for the sake of being understood (Rick doesn’t need to words in this moment to know the feeling’s there), but that it’s said for the novelty of it. Daryl says, ‘I love you,’ to Rick in the dead night forest, just because he can. Because they’re painted creamy white, panting hard, and wrapped up in one another.

So, Rick says it back. “I love you, too.” Just because he can.

He pulls back, and looks directly into Daryl’s eyes. He repeats the sentiment, but this time, without words, and not because he can, but because he _must_.

Daryl blinks back at him. His eyes are wide and his cheeks are flushed. _The look._

Rick wonders how he could have ever seen that expression written on Daryl’s face and not known that it was an, ‘I love you,’ louder than words could ever communicate.

He wonders what, ‘I love you,’ looks like on his own face. He wonders if it’s as obvious as it is on Daryl’s. He wonders how many years he’s been saying it.

“Since the start,” Daryl murmurs.

A smile creeps onto Rick’s face. He nods his head.  

Yeah. Since the start.


End file.
